And So He Suffered
by kisaitaluvr
Summary: They say that a little suffering is good for the soul and that strong people never have easy pasts. A well meaning alien ritual reveals things about Jim Kirk's past that no one saw coming. The crew struggles to help their Captain and come to terms with the horrifying new information they've accidentally received. Somewhat inspired by a prompt on the st xi kinkmeme on livejournal.
1. And So It Begins

CHAPTER 1

Leonard grumbled to himself as he stepped into the sealed room provided to him by the Delvian delegation. It was just his luck that one of the few times he decides to beam down with the away team just happens to coincide with them landing on a planet that requires the captain and his 'significant other' to be deaged to back before they lost their individual virginity's so they can complete a 'purity ritual'. What is with alien races and virginity? Why the hell would anyone want to go back to the awkwardest fucking stage of their life and relive it for a bunch of strangers.

He shucked off his blue outer shirt so that he could get rid of the tighter black undershirt, he was already going to have to strip to complete this damn ritual so he might as well start now while he was waiting for this 'purity fruit' to be brought to him by the Chancellor's aides. The only good thing about this was the fact that they were dead set on it being a couple who preformed the ritual instead of just throwing two random unfortunate away team members together, if he had to do this in front of a crowd he'd much rather do it with Jim than with any other person on the Enterprise.

Glancing up as the door to the room opened, his eyebrow raised as he took in most of the away crew striding in. Uhura, Sulu and two science officers as well as the three security officers they brought down with them walked in and stood awkwardly by the door, and all but Uhura and Sulu were making valiant attempts to avoid looking at him.

"What are all of you doing here?"

Uhura gave him a smirk, "The Chancellor said both you and Jim needed 'aide's' to over see your transformation and help you get ready, usually that would be one of the Delvian's but I managed to convince him that you and Jim would be more willing to have your fellow crew members around you."

Leonard brows furrowed in confusion, "The hell? They think we'd want _more_ people to witness this shit show? You know what- I don't wanna know what goes on in their minds, is Spock with Jim then? At least they let someone who'll know if he's having an allergic reaction in with him."

"Speakin' of that why the hell couldn't we be in the same room? Wouldn't that speed up this stupid ritual?"

"The Delvian's believe that neither party should see each other until they are fully transformed back to their 'purest state'." Uhura stated with a smile.

"What a load of fuckin' bull. When are they gonna come give me this stupid fruit so I can get this over with and get back to the Enterprise and treating injuries?"

Either the Delvian's had impeccable timing or the aide had been standing outside the door listening in waiting for someone to ask that question because as soon as the words left Leonard's mouth a light purple skinned Delvian came scrambling in with a basket grasped in his hands. He stumbled over to the bed and placed it down gently next to Leonard's leg before moving back and bowing till his head nearly touched his knees.

"The Chancellor has blessed me with the honor of assisting you and your delegation in preparing you for the wonders of the purity ritual! You may call me Cal'Halla should you need to address me, next to you is a basket of our planets ripest purity fruit. You must consume at least two whole fruits for the fruit to be able to bring you back to your purest state." Cal'Halla stuttered out as he gestured towards the basket of fruit. 

This 'purity fruit' looked a lot like a peach, if a peach was the color of a strawberry with striking lavender swirls decorating the sides. There was a total of ten of them sitting in the basket and Leonard sighed irritably before reaching over and grabbing the two smallest looking ones, he sure as hell didn't want to eat more than he absolutely had to. Usually he would be cursing up a storm about eating strange alien fruits that have never been consumed by Terrans before but he had scanned and ran several tests on the DNA of the Delvian's and they had a startlingly similar makeup to Terrans with the exception of the chromosomes that define the pigment of their skin.

Besides Jim had seemed awfully irritated when the Delvian's mentioned that the only way they would complete negotiations and join the federation was if he, as the captain, and his significant other were willing to undergo their ritual. The sooner they could get the negotiations over with and be back on the Enterprise the better because Leonard was getting real sick of this planet and its flashy inhabitants.

Once he was done eating the two fruits, which turned out to taste like the peaches it resembled despite the strange colors, he resigned himself to laying back on the bed and waiting for the changes to start happening.

Turns out he didn't have to wait long because not even ten minutes later his nerve endings start to buzz, the sensations weren't pleasant but they thankfully weren't painful either. Twenty minutes in, the pain started flaring up, quickly building to the point where it was painful enough that he had to pull out one of the pain killers that he had stashed in his medkit. Then he made sure that the delegate took one to the other room for Jim to have, since he didn't trust whatever the Delvian's had offered him for pain to be something that Jim could take without having an allergic reaction.

Thirty minutes and his body was two and a half inches shorter and his shoulders were less broad, his muscles got slightly more defined and his skin developed the darker tan that he used to have back when he was constantly out in the hot Georgia sun. Sulu and Uhura were doing a pretty good job distracting him from thinking about this stupid ass ritual he was about to go through, and at forty minutes the transformation was finally finished.

As Leonard looked down at his freshly deaged body he thought to himself that there was literally no way the universe could make being 19 and a virgin about to fuck his best friend and lover for the pleasure of a bunch of shitty alien dignitaries any worse.


	2. Just When You Think It Can't Get Worse

CHAPTER 2

Until it did...

The sight of Spock high-tailing it out of the adjacent room where Jim had been put for his transformation was enough to let Leonard know that he had royally fucked up by goading the universe into making this somehow worse.

"Doctor" Spock said tersely, "Your assistance is needed immediately with The Captai-"

"Chancellor! Chancellor something has gone horribly wrong!" The Delvian aide screeched in his shrill voice as he narrowly avoided slamming into Spock's back in his haste to throw himself at the Chancellors feet.

Leonard took one look at the raw panic on the mans face and took off in a sprint down the short corridor that connected their two rooms. What he saw made everything in his chest want to drop out of his body and land on the floor in a bloody congealed heap.

On the bed was Jim, but instead of the sure and confident teenager he had expected Jim to be at the time of him loosing his virginity that image was replaced with a _tiny_ red-faced toddler, one who was obviously scared out of his mind if the tears that were swimming in his eyes were anything to go by.

The sound of thundering footsteps alerted him to the fact that The Chancellor and his aides along with the rest of the away team from the enterprise had followed his lead and came to see what had gone so wrong with Jim. Spock had obviously reacted quickly once the transformation had started to go wrong if the blue science officers shirt that was hanging off of the toddler's small body was anything to go by, but it also made the way Jim squirmed and curled up on himself very _very_ obvious as the shirt rode up.

"Son of a _bitch_." Leonard breathed as he took in the dark bruises mottled all down his best friends legs, some of them were healing, the rainbow of yellows and greens and blues giving away the ages of the bruises but others were dark and painful looking and yet there were still a few that were obviously only ten maybe fifteen minutes old as they were still red and swelling.

Leonard quickly moved to pull the Blue shirt down hoping to preserve some of the privacy Jim deserved but no matter how good his intentions were it didn't stop the chill that moved threw his body as Jim flinched away from his touch at first.

"I thought you said it would make him the age he was when he lost his virginity!" Uhura whisper yelled at the Delvian delegates as she whirled around to look at them.

"It should have! I have never seen anything like this before!"

"Jim told me his step dad had abused him. But I – I thought he meant he hit him, I didn't – didn't think he meant the _bastard RAPED him."_ Leonard said breathlessly as he watched the kid squirm at the raised voices.

Suddenly he broke out of his stupor and realized that if the kid had bruises on his legs that probably meant that they were other places and who knew how badly Frank had hurt Jim at this age? For all they knew Jim could be bleeding internally underneath Spock's shirt. Leonard stood up and turned quickly running to his room, grabbing his tri-corder and sprinting back as fast as he could, toddler or not his best friend needed him, probably more than he had ever needed him before and he wasn't gonna let him down. When he got back he immediately dropped down next to the bed near Jim's head.

"Hey Sweetheart, my name is Leonard. I'm a doctor." He drawled softly, making sure his southern drawl was noticeable and prevalent, something that Jim told him made him feel safe as an adult that he hoped would carry over to him as a kid, "Those bruises look like they hurt somethin' awful. You mind if I take a closer look and see if I can make 'em better?"

Jim sniffled, turning his head towards Leonard at the sound of his voice and Leonard's eyebrows furrowed as he took in the dazed look and glassy sheen over his eyes as well as the way his movements seemed weak and feeble. He shuddered and mumbled something to soft for Leonard to hear.

"I'm gonna pull that shirt down and see if there's any more bruises on ya honey, is that all right?" He waited until he saw what barely passed as a nod before he pulled Jim's arms up and out through the collar of the shirt in an attempt to keep Jim's lower half covered. He hissed at the heat coming off Jim's skin at the same time that everyone behind him gasped at the assorted bruises covering his body.

He turned away for a second to regain his composure, it wouldn't do to scare the kid with the scowl he could feel taking over his face. Another glance took in the bruises that were scattered around, an angry black bruise in the shape of a boot tread covering his sternum, smaller bruises clearly formed by a fist littered his belly and could be seen wrapping around to his back but what was the worst was several bruises on his throat and arms that resembled fingerprints and one or two welts that were shaped like a belt buckle.

The sight made him want to puke but he knew that he had to keep it together if he wanted to actually help Jim, "Jimmy, Kiddo can you turn over for me? I need to see if your back is hurt to."

Leonard's eyebrow rose in concern as the sluggishness and weakness in the kids limbs showed itself again when he couldn't even roll himself over onto his back. "Spock give me my tri-corder, somethings wrong he shouldn't be this weak."

He mumbled to himself as he snatched the tri-corder out of Spock's hands and set about turning it on, "You okay buddy? You tired?"

"H-hurts." Jim whimpered hoarsely, he shifted and squirmed at the beeping of the tri-corder as Leonard ran it over his body. He focused intensely the screen of his tri-corder, a horrible sense of dread filling him even more with every single beep of the machine.

Suddenly his face was warped by an intense anger. "I thought you said you weren't going to give him anything!" He hissed sharply as he rounded on the dignitaries behind him.

"We did not give him anything!", The Chancellor huffed, "Even if we had given him anything the purity fruit strips away any substances in the body that were not there at the time of the original loss of virginity."

"Doctor McCoy what makes you believe the Delvian's gave him anything?" Spock inquired, stepping up to the bed pointedly not glancing at the small body currently occupying the bed.

"He has a combination of sedative and aphrodisiacs in his blood, some asshole's version of a date rape drug." He growled, "It's way to high of a dose for someone of his size, no wonder he can barely move himself, he's drugged out of his damn mind!"

He turned back to the bed and pulled the shirt back up to cover Jim's chest and stomach, "One of you comm the Enterprise and get Scotty to either beam down a dermal regenerator or beam us up to medbay so that I can flush this shi- crap out of his system and try to find a way to get him back to his normal age."

That made another of the Chancellors aide's step forward once again, "You can't leave! The only way for him to change back and leave is if you complete the ritual!"

Leonard growled and stood up to his full height, striding right over to the delegate and getting in his face, "This is a _five year old child_ who has been drugged and beaten and is practically as weak as a newborn fawn. I'm not letting him stay on this planet for another minute and I sure as all hell ain't about to have sex with him to change him back!"

He walked back over to the bed, ripped the covers off the side and wrapped them gently around Jim's flushed form. With one look of a highly arched brow, the crew of the Enterprise stepped up beside him, Uhura talking quickly into a communicator and he could hear Scotty on the other end telling her to stand still so he could beam everyone up.


	3. The Medbay Blues

CHAPTER 3

Leonard immediately pulled the blanket that was folded around Jim up higher over his head as he rematerialized on the transporter pad, partially to shield his eyes from the bright lights and the loud sounds but also to shield him from the view of those in the transporter room. He didn't want anyone to see the bruises scattered over his pale flesh and frighten Jim in the ensuing panic that might happen. He watched as Chapel came walking around the corner holding another tri-corder as well as one of his 'Jim specific' medkits.

"Chapel! Go ahead to medbay and get one of the more private biobeds set up, get me a fever reducer hypo as well as one to detox sedatives out of his body and set up a dermal regenerator, I'll be right behind ya." He barked out as he shifted Jim around so he could walk a bit faster. The faster he got to medbay and started figuring out how to turn Jim back the better. Chapel gaped at him in confusion for a second before turning around and jogging off to medbay. At least someone had the decency to follow his orders and not question every move he made.

He moved to follow her only to be stopped by a hand on his arm, "Leonard-" Uhura started as she pulled him to a stop before he could get out of the transporter room.

"I'll get the senior crew updated as soon as I get new information, Uhura. But right now this little guy needs my full attention and I need to get him to the medbay so I can start getting some answers on how to change him back. If I find anything, you guys will be the first ones to know." He stated shortly as he shrugged her hand off and started walking again.

Uhura stood there and watched him turn the corner before releasing an irritated sigh and moving to head back up to the bridge, "Oi, Lass! Why's the doctor so young lookin' and who's tha wee lad in 'is arms?" Scotty called out after her.

"That's the captain, Scotty." She called back without stopping determined to get to the bridge and get as far away from this planet as possible.

"It's alright Darlin' we're almost to sickbay and I'll be able to give you something to help with your bruises once we get there okay?" Leonard crooned softly to the squirming child in his arms.

Halfway through the walk to sickbay Jim's symptoms started getting worse, Leonard had removed the blanket once it was obvious that it was exacerbating his fever and what was once slightly labored pants had devolved into weak, barely noticeable wheezing breaths against his collar bones. He hadn't really had the chance down on the planet to look at anything other than the tox screen results on his tri-corder but judging by the horrible bruising and bumps under the skin where his ribs were it was entirely possible that Jim had broken ribs and possibly a punctured or deflated lung.

And that wasn't even taking into consideration that he might be having an allergic reaction to either the purity fruit or to the drugs that had been reintroduced to his body when it was reverted to a younger form. As he quicken his brisk walk to a slight jog he shifted Jim again so he could pull out his communicator. "McCoy to Chapel."

"This is Chapel, go ahead Doctor."

"I need you to add a child sized biomask and oxygen to the list of things to have prepared and near the bio-bed for when I get to sickbay and you might want to have an intubation kit ready as well, I won't be one hundred percent sure of everything we need until I can scan Jim again."

"Of course Doctor. Chapel out."

He glanced down as he heard a soft whimper and before he could offer another soft reassurance that they were almost to medbay he felt Jim's small body start wildly flailing in his arms. Instantly he tightened his grip on the convulsing body and took off running as fast as he could. Less than a minute later he went skidding through the doors into the medbay and yelled for Christine as he set Jim down on the table.

"He started seizing a few seconds ago, get me some Carbamazepine!" He yelled as he rolled Jim onto his side to keep him from aspirating on his own vomit. Leonard quickly lifted Jim's head up and rested it on his arm, it would have been better to put a pillow or something softer under his head but he didn't have time and he needed to keep Jim from slamming his head against the surface of the biobed.

He grabbed the hypo from Chapel and quickly slid it into Jim's neck, depressing the end and breathing heavily as Jim's body slowly but surely stopped convulsing. Once he was sure the seizure was over he reached across the bed and grabbed the biomask, making sure it was strapped tight enough that it didn't slip off but not so tight that it would hurt him.

A quick glance up showed that Christine was still standing next to him. "Chris I need you to hand me that tri-corder and while I scan him you can go ahead and give him the fever reducer and the detox hypo."

Leonard took a deep breath as he started up to tri-corder and brought it up to start scanning, he frowned as the scans brought up more and more injuries, besides the cuts and bruises, he was correct in his assumption that Jim had a few broken ribs and they were mostly on his right side. The broken ribs were painful but they didn't look to have punctured his lungs so that meant that the difficulty breathing was most likely part of an allergic reaction.

There was a hairline fracture on his sternum where the worst of the boot shaped bruises were and he had a fractured wrist and a partially crushed windpipe where the worst of the finger print shaped bruises were. A soft but pained whine tore his eyes away from the scanner and he moved to the head of the bed where Jim was coming back to consciousness after his seizure.

"Hey Jimmy, you back with us sweetheart?" He cooed softly as he ran a hand through the short locks of straw colored hair in an attempt to soothe Jim.

"Burns."

"What burns, sugar?"

Jim shifted clearly trying to get away from where Chapel was moving around finishing setting up the dermal regenerator. "M–my head and my tummy."

"Don't worry Jimmy, it'll feel better soon, Nurse Chapel is gonna give you something to help with the pain and then I'm gonna start healing those bruises." Leonard said giving Christine a pointed glance which sent her off to go get a hypo that he could give to Jim without worrying about him having an allergic reaction.

"I'm sorry." Jim sniffled.

"What are you sorry for kiddo?"

"Frank says I'm not supposed to bother people just because I'm hurt."

The words took a few seconds to register in Leonard's brain but when they did his vision went red for a second as rage coursed through his veins. "Jimmy, Darlin', you aren't bothering me by tellin' me you're hurtin', I want you to tell me so that I can help make you feel better."

Jimmy looked at him with a look that made his heart ache horribly in his chest, the disbelief blatant on his young face. "I'm serious Jimmy, don't ever worry about tellin' me you're hurt. I'm a doctor, helping people is what I do." But Jimmy just looked at him blankly.

"Leonard." Chapel called softly.

Leonard sighed and patted Jim on the head before taking the painkiller and gently administering it into his neck. "I have to go talk with Nurse Chapel but I'll be right back okay Jimmy?" He waited until Jim gave him a slow nod before he turned and walked to the far corner of the room with Christine, the last thing he wanted to do was talk about Jim and all the abuse that occurred directly in front of the kid.

"Len what's going on? Why the hell is The Captain a kid all of a sudden and you are a hell of a lot younger than when you left?" She asked quietly, they had turned to face away from Jim and towards the rest of sickbay so that Jim couldn't read their lips.

"Those goddamn Delvian's wanted us to perform some stupid purity ritual before they would agree to join the Federation and they had us eat some fruit that regresses people to back right before they lost their virginity. Obviously that wasn't a good fucking idea, hell we should have just told them to take their purity ritual and go fuck themsel – What the fuck!" Leonard yelled as he whirled around at the sudden loud blaring coming from the biobed that Jim was on.

He ran over and yanked back the privacy curtain only to find that Jim was no longer laying on the biobed, his biomask was half hanging off the side and the sheet that had been placed on him was haphazardly strewn across the floor.

"Where the fuck did he go!"


	4. A Toddler's World

CHAPTER 4

Jimmy waited until he was sure that Leonard and the pretty blonde nurse's attention was focused solely on their conversation then he slowly slipped the bio-mask off his face and sat completely still until he was sure that no alarms would go off to alert those two of his movements. Finally once he assured himself he was in the clear he swung his legs over the side of the bio-bed and hightailed it out of the medbay as quickly as his weakened little legs could carry him.

The last thing he heard before he was out of earshot of the medbay was Leonard's shout, part of him felt bad for running out since the doctor did seem to care about whether he was okay or not. But a bigger part of him was worried that this was all a test that Frank made up to see if he would disobey his rules and tell someone about the things he did to him and he knew that disobeying the rules only made it worse for him in the end. The memory of the pain he was in the last time he made the mistake of talking to a doctor who just so happened to be put up to questioning Jim while treating him after a particularly brutal beating by Frank was enough to make sure Jimmy didn't turn back around and let the doctor take care of him.

The running made his ribs sting and his bruises ache but it was better than getting hurt worse and besides the pain spurred him on to keep running.

He had already made it into a turbo-lift and down a few levels, weaving his way through the ship before he heard a stoic voice come of the communications system and announce that there was a child loose on the ship and should anyone see him to please escort him either to the bridge or to the sickbay. He let out a soft huff and had to hand it to the doctor, he sure did get the word about his absence out quick. He was brought out of his musings by the automated voice of the turbo-lift announcing he had reached his destination.

His mom had always told him that engineering was no place for a little kid to be hanging around, so it made sense to Jimmy that if a little kid like him wasn't supposed to be there it would obviously be the last place that anyone would think to look. And even when they eventually came looking for him down here he would already have a plan in place to get off the ship or at the very least would have been able to come up with an excuse for Frank as to why he was on a Starship in the first place.

Jimmy quickly made his way through the halls of engineering making sure to take a quick glance around all the corners before he went around them that way he didn't accidentally get caught by any adults who might have been on the look out for him. Eventually he made it to his destination completely unhindered and his eyes fell on the one thing that would be able to get him out of this mess and hopefully back to the farm before he got into serious trouble with Frank, a fully operational Galileo shuttle craft.

Now all he had to do was get in and figure out how to trick the crew into opening the shuttle bay doors so that he could fly it out of here and back to Iowa.

"Hey! Kid you shouldn't be in here! Get over here before you get hurt!" Jim jumped as a loud voice boomed and echoed across the shuttle bay.

As he looked in the direction of the voice he saw a rather imposing man in a red StarFleet uniform with a goatee and an angry looking scowl on his face stalking towards him. He froze as the man stomped up to him but as soon as he went to bend down and grab him Jimmy came back to himself and scampered out of his reach.

The man's scowl deepened. "Kid get over here!" He yelled as he made another grab at Jimmy.

But Jimmy wasn't having it, he ducked and weaved around every attempt the man made and with each failed movement he was getting angrier and angrier until he finally just full body lunged at Jimmy. Jimmy panicked and barely managed to scramble out of the way, but his foot landed on a stray tool that had been left on the ground and as it slid out from under his foot he felt his ankle shift and something snap as a sharp shooting pain went searing through his leg.

Tears welled up in his eyes and he let out a sharp gasp, finally deciding that he could come back to get in the shuttle when this man wasn't near it. He turned and blindly ran from the shuttle bay, his ankle screaming in pain at every step he took but he couldn't let himself stop running until he was sure he was out of the mean mans range.

Jimmy could hear the sounds of distant footsteps getting closer as people no doubt were coming to see what all the commotion was about, quickly he found a small vent opening that he could pry open and hide in, the way he sometimes used to do back home when Frank got really mad and he could still fit in the vents.

He squirmed and crawled his way threw the vents until he could no longer hear anything but the steady, low vibrating hum of the Starships engines. Then he laid his head down on his shirt covered arms, panting softly with exhaustion and he closed his eyes, trying desperately to focus on the hum of the engines and not the horrible pains shooting through his leg. Soon enough the noise from the engines and the warmth that the vent was generating around him soothed him enough that he was able to lull into a fitful sleep.


	5. Panic! At The Med Bay

"Fuck. Fuck! Fucking Goddammit! I turned away for a minute and he's gone!" Leonard yelled as he tore through sickbay, desperately hoping that maybe Jimmy had hid somewhere among the beds or the other patients, anywhere but somewhere out in this giant floating tin can where pretty much anything and everything could hurt him.

He yanked his communicator out of his pocket and ran out the doors of sickbay, into the halfway ducking between confused crew members as he went. "McCoy to Bridge!" He growled.

"Spock to McCoy go ahead Doctor."

"Jim's gone you need to make a ship wide announcement telling all crew members to be on the look out for a five year old kid, make sure you don't use his name! And make sure that any teams you put together to search for him know not to approach him without me there!"

The Vulcan exhaled in what was probably the Vulcan equivalent of a sigh. "I have alerted security and I will be making an announcement shortly. Remain where you are, I will be there shortly to join you in your search." He stated and Leonard could hear him tell Sulu that he had the Conn for the duration of his absence.

"You better hurry up Hobgoblin I don't have time to waste waiting for you to get your green blooded ass down here."

"Indeed. Spock Out."

* * *

Leonard huffed as he paced from one end of the halfway to the other, he knew it hadn't even been five minutes since Spock had left the Bridge but in his mind he was taking way to goddamn long, who knew what kind of trouble Jimmy had came across. A Starship was no place for a child and it sure as hell wasn't a place for a child who had recently been abused and was no doubt scared out of his little mind.

He knew his friend was smart as a kid but that just meant that there was a whole nother laundry list of things that could possibly go wrong if Jim got spooked by someone coming after him. A million horrible ways for Jimmy to get hurt suddenly popped into his racing mind. He was drawn out of his musings by the sound of Spock's soft footsteps, as soon as he was sure the science officer had him in his sights he started jogging the other direction, hoping that Spock would get the hint and pick up his damn pace.

"Doctor." Spock called out.

"What Spock? We need to focus and keep moving so we can figure out where the hell Jim could have gone."

"I have just received information from Mr. Scott informing me that The Captain had a run in with Security Officer Giotto."

Leonard perked up at the information. "What? When, where, is he still there, does Giotto have him?" Leonard asked frantically as he rounded on Spock and snatched the communicator out of his hands.

"According to Mr. Scott, Mr. Giotto interacted with the Captain in the shuttle bay but by the time Mr. Scott arrived the Captain had already vacated the area, they have not seen anything that might indicate where he has gone but it would be most productive to talk to Mr. Giotto. Once he has informed us of what transpired I believe we will be able to use the general time and location to find and track the Captains possible paths and location via the security camera footage." Spock stated as he turned and started walking off towards the lift that would take them to the shuttle bay.

The ride in the lift, much like the time he spent waiting for Spock to come to him, was taking far to much time. All he wanted to do was find Jimmy, get him back to sickbay and start helping him heal, instead he was stuck stomping his way to the shuttle bay, where they found Scotty and some other engineers crowded around Giotto.

Leonard took a second to take in the bloodied nose that Giotto was sporting before cutting to the chase, "What the hell happened here?"

Giotto glared at him, "I was walking through the shuttle bay on my normal patrol when the announcement telling everyone to keep a look out for a kid came over the ship-wide communication system. I heard the turbo-lift open and after a few seconds I saw what I thought might have been a child take off towards the end of the bay. I followed him and when he got to close to one of the Galileo shuttles I alerted him of my presence and told him to walk towards me."

"He didn't do that so I started moving towards him to try and get him to come with me, but the little brat just kept squirming and scrambling out of my way every time I tried to grab at him. It was clear that he wasn't going to come with me willingly so I lunged for him and I almost got him but the shirt he was wearing slipped threw my fingers before I could get a stable hold on him."

Giotto huffed and shifted as he pressed a cloth harder against his still sluggishly bleeding nose, "He must have tripped on a tool or a wire or something cause the next thing I know he lets out a gasp and hightails it the hell outta here, I think I might have heard something crack so maybe he hurt himself? By time I got up and went after him he was long gone and Mr. Scott found me."

A quick glance Scotty's way showed that he agreed with what Giotto was saying, Leonard sighed irritably and ran a hand through his hair, "Spock and I are going to head down to security and see if we can find out where he went off to on the security cameras."

"Just – Just keep an eye out for him and if you see him don't yell at him and don't try to grab for him. He's scared and hurt, he needs someone to calmly approach him and escort him to sickbay, not apprehend him and treat him like a criminal." He said with a pointed glare aimed towards Giotto. "In fact it might just be better if you tell all your engineers that if they see him, they should follow him at a safe distance so they can keep an eye on him but comm me so I can come and handle him."

Once Scotty nodded at him with a curt, "Will do lad, hope ya' find 'im quickly." Leonard and Spock turned and set off to the security offices.

* * *

It was thankfully a fast trip to the security offices and it took a blessedly short amount of time for Ensign Jacobs to pin point where Jim was. The fact that it was short and sweet didn't change the fact that getting to Jimmy was going to be a long and tedious as fuck process.

 _'Of all the places he could have gone Jim had to find the one place only Keenser could get to him.'_ Leonard thought to himself as he and Spock jogged towards the hallway that Jim and turned down shortly before he disappeared into the ventilation system.

Spock had suggested, shortly after they found out where Jim had gone, that they should probably bring Ensign Keenser with them so that he might be able to force Jim out of the vents, seeing as neither Leonard nor Spock had any hopes of fitting into them. But If there was one thing Leonard was sure of it was that the only way they would get Jimmy out of the vents was to make him feel safe enough with them that he knew they would protect him and while Jim liked Keenser normally, Leonard doubted that sending a mute alien into the vents to forcefully drag him out would work out well in the long run.

Sure it might get him out of the vents faster, because Keenser would be able to just drag him out considering his weakened state, but in the end that would not only leave room for his physical condition to worsen but also make it more likely for Jim to try to be an escape artist later because no worth while sense of trust or safety could ever be established by dragging a kid out of his hiding place by the ankles.

Leonard sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he slowed to a walk once the got closer to the vent. He wanted desperately to just get Jimmy out of the vents as quickly as possible and get him the hell back to medbay so he would fix him up and change him back but he had no way of knowing how long Jim was going to be stuck as Jimmy, which meant he had to go slow that way he knew if they were in this for the long run that Jimmy wouldn't keep trying to get away from him.

He sat down next to the vent and held out his hand for the flashlight that Spock carried with him, at least he wouldn't have to spend possibly hours laying on his stomach since these vents were only about a quarter of the way up the wall, just high enough for him to sit comfortably and have his head at eye level with the vents.

"Jimmy?" He called out softly, slowly removing the vent cover and peering in. "You in there kiddo?"

The bright light was met with a soft breathy whimper and the sound of someone trying to weakly move themselves. "No, no Darlin'! Don't move around, you're hurt, just relax and listen to me alright." He waited until the noises stopped before continuing.

"I know you're scared and you're in pain and you have no idea where you are but I promise you aren't in trouble for running off okay?"

"Doctor I doubt that the Captain thinks he's in trouble for running away." Spock said making sure to speak low enough that Jim couldn't hear him.

Leonard ignored him in favor of continuing to talk to Jimmy. "I don't want you to be scared okay? I'm not going to saying anything to Frank about this okay." Leonard stopped and shot a dark glare Spock's way when his communicator suddenly went off, the loud noise followed closely by a thump in the vents and a heart wrenching cry of pain.

Spock turned and briskly walked to the farthest end of the hallway, talking lowly into the communicator, presumably giving orders to one of his little science minions.

With a soft sigh he continued, "Sweetheart? Are you alright? Ya didn't hurt anything did ya?" Only to be met by a whimper and labored breaths.

The sound of shuffling could be heard as Jimmy moved around, but Leonard couldn't tell if he was moving away from the opening or moving towards it.

"L– Leonard?"

Immediately Leonard perked right up, "Yeah, baby boy? You alright in there?"

"I'm sorry I r–ran away. "

"It's okay, Like I told you I'm not mad I just want you to come out so I can make you feel better. I know you hurt your ankle when you were in the shuttle bay, how a bout you come out and let me take a look at it, huh? That sound okay to you?"

His question was met with a soft gasp, "I didn't mean to hurt the man in the shuttle bay! I–I–I swear I thought h–he was gonna hurt me!" Jimmy sobbed.

"I know and you didn't really hurt him, there wasn't even a scratch on him. You aren't going to get in any trouble for that."

Suddenly Leonard jerked back from the vent opening and quickly glanced down at the screen of his communicator, speedily reading the message Spock had sent alerting him to the fact that he was heading to the science labs, as his minions had finished analyzing the makeup of the purity fruit that Sulu had had the wherewithal to grab a few pieces of before they beamed back aboard the ship. Thankfully he was going to start trying to find a way to safely turn Jimmy back into Jim sooner rather than later.

"Y-you promise?"

"Yeah, yeah I promise, sugar." Leonard said breathlessly.

"You think you're about ready to work your way outta those vents? 'Cause I really need to take a look at that ankle o' yours an make sure the rest a you is alright." It took about another half an hour of reassurances and coaxing but finally Jimmy was slowly working his way closer to the opening of the vent, hell he could reach in right now and pull him out without worrying but he knew to do that would erase all of the work he had just put in.

He held his breath as he moved back and waited for Jimmy to worm his way out of the vent feet first, once he was about half of the way out Leonard reached up and wrapped his arms around his waist. Partially to stabilize him so he didn't land on his ankle once he was all the way out and partially to make sure he didn't get spooked and try to go back farther in the vents. One look at the kids ankle told his without a doubt that it was broken, though it didn't necessarily look like a clean break if the bits of bones protruding from the skin around his ankle were anything to go by.

The fact that a five year old kid had a pain tolerance high enough to allow him to _run down a corridor and climb into a vent with a broken ankle_ that had broken skin made Leonard's blood boil in his veins. It didn't matter that Jim was as far from Frank's reach as possible, seeing that and knowing that information made him want to hunt Frank down where ever he was and make sure the rest of his existence was nothing but horrid.

How the hell Winona Kirk or literally anyone else around this kid hadn't noticed this was going on the first time around was beyond anything he could comprehend.

Cradling Jimmy in his arms, he slowly stood up and turned to start walking back towards the turbo-lift. "You ready to go get all fixed up, Darlin'?"

* * *

"I'm sure if we try really hard we can convince Nurse Chapel to get you somethin' nice from the replicators to eat after we're all done fixin' ya. Would you like that?" Leonard was rambling. He knew it, Jimmy knew it, hell every crew member they passed on the way to sickbay probably knew it, but it was the only thing Leonard could think of to do.

Ever since he had helped Jimmy out of the vents, the closer they got to medbay that more tense Jimmy got, to the point where now that they were nearly there Jimmy was stiff as a board in his arms, with his tiny little fists nearly ripping holes in the bunched up blue fabric of Leonard's shirt. He wasn't sure if Jimmy was just scared to go back to medbay because he thought Chapel and him were still mad or if it was because he was afraid of medbays altogether.

"Do I really n–need to go? M–My ankle doesn't even hurt that much!" Jimmy pleaded against Leonard's shoulder.

Leonard sighed and tighten his grip a bit, "Jimmy you need to get fixed up, I know you don't like sickbay but you have to go." He said sternly, thankfully they were nearing the doors to the sickbay, it was just a few more feet and then he could hopefully get started on healing Jimmy.

"W–Wait! I don't need to go, really! I–I'll be good please!" Jimmy squeaked as he started struggling, desperately clawing at the back of Leonard's shirt, trying to pull himself up and over Leonard's shoulder.

Leonard tightened his hold on the struggling toddler, shooting a quick glance and a startled hand motion towards Christine as he stepped through the threshold into sickbay. "It's okay Darlin', nothing bad is gonna happen to ya." He whispered soothingly one hand moving to rub up and down Jimmy's back.

But the gesture did nothing to calm the frightened child, "NO! Please! I–I'll be good I promise! Please! Please, let me down! I don't wanna go in there!" Jimmy didn't even seem to notice as his legs started kicking at Leonard's stomach, his breathing sounded high and sharp in the previously quiet medbay.

Leonard grappled to keep his hold on the boy as he frantically flailed. "Ji–Jimmy! You're alright I promise! You need to stop struggling you're going to hurt yourself!"

"PLEASE, PLEASE, I'M SORRY, I'LL BE GOOD, PLEASE LET ME GO!" He wailed tears streaming down his face as he gasped and whimpered, barely able to drag in enough air when he started to hyperventilate.

Chapel stood off to the side her hands half in the air like she wanted to try and take Jimmy into her arms but didn't know if it would help or make the situation worse. Leonard mouthed to her to go get a sedative, the last thing he wanted to do was drug the kid but with how violently he was struggling in his arms, he knew it was only a matter of time before Jimmy seriously injured himself in his panic.

Once Chapel moved away he wasted no time moving back over to the bio-bed that Jimmy had been in before, he tried to put him down on it only for Jimmy to immediately try to bolt off of it and around him. When he grabbed him and pulled him back into his arms he could feel the fast, shaky breaths that Jimmy was taking as he held him tight to his chest. He quickly pinned Jimmy's arms to his sides and turned around so he could half sit on the bio-bed while he attempted to calm him and tried to keep Jimmy's flailing limbs from striking anything or anyone that got to close.

"LET ME GO! PLEASE, LEONARD LET ME GO! I'M SORRY I'M SORRY PLEASE, LEONARD!"

Jimmy just kept screaming, his whole body shaking against Leonard as he slowly started to run out of energy to struggle against Leonard's grip. A few seconds later and Christine was administering the sedative into his neck, his screams tapering off into sobs and eventually whimpers as the drug worked its way through his body.

"You're okay, baby boy, I promise. No one's gonna hurt you, it's okay, it's okay. Just settle down, Darlin' I've gotcha." Leonard crooned into Jimmy's hair as he rested his cheek against the top of his head. "That's it Jimmy, you're doing good. Just go to sleep, Darlin' you'll feel better when you wake up. Just go to sleep."

He continued his whispered reassurances until he was sure that Jimmy was asleep against him then he turned and gently laid him on the bed, carding his hair through the soft blond strands as he pulled a blanket up to Jimmy's chin and tucked it around him. As he stood up and leaned against the edge of the bed he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply to try and calm himself down, just looking at the tear tracks on Jimmy's sweet little face was enough to make him want to die.


	6. Cross the Bridge to get to the Antidote

**CHAPTER 6**

A shaky intake of breath drew him out of his contemplation and he gazed up to find Uhura and Spock both standing near the entrance to sickbay looking at Jimmy with two of the saddest expressions he had ever seen on either of their faces. Uhura had one hand covering her mouth and tears gathering at the corner of her eyes while her other hand held a PADD that was nearly slipping out of her lax grip. Spock's mouth was open slightly in horror and his hands were dangling at his sides instead of clenched behind his back as usual.

"Leonard..." Uhura whispered as she took a step towards him.

"He'll be okay Uhura. I–He'll be okay." He whispered back, looking sadly at Jimmy's still form.

Leonard felt Christine squeeze his shoulder, "What are you two doing here?" He asked quietly, turning to face them so he didn't have to keep staring at Jim.

"I – " Uhura stopped short and cleared her throat before continuing. "I was coming to tell you that I started looking into Frank, Jim's step-dad, and I found something that might explain why he's so scared of medbay." She said softly, "I also found out that he's still living at Jim's moms farm in Riverside."

Leonard's expression hardened when Frank's name was mentioned, "What did you find?"

Uhura licked her lips before handing him the PADD, "He used to work as a janitor for one of the local hospitals. Apparently he was good friends with some of the doctors there and they let him _use_ some of the facilities after hours as long as they were allowed to stay and watch while he was there." She ground out, her voice overflowing with barely suppressed anger.

It didn't take a genius to put together what Jimmy being afraid of sickbay and his abusive step-fathers use of medical facilities could mean.

 _No wonder Jim hates doctors and sickbay as an adult, god only knows what those bastards did to him there._ Leonard thought as he scrolled through the data Uhura had put together on the PADD.

"I'm pretty sure Scotty and Sulu are trying to find a way to get us docked near Riverside for repairs next time we have a bit of shore leave after all this is over." Uhura said humorlessly as she took the PADD back.

Leonard smirked at her, "I hope so." Then, suddenly remembering that Spock was also in the room he turned to address him. "Spock, is this what you were here for as well?"

"Negative, Doctor I was coming to inform you that I believe to have synthesized an antidote that we can use to reverse the effects of the Delvian purity fruit."

"Are you sure? Did you make sure your little minions had a list of everything medical-wise that Jim is allergic to? I'm not taking the change of giving him something that might end up causing an allergic reaction, who knows what kind of shit could happen if something goes wrong now." Leonard huffed, as much as he wanted to just jump right in to give Jimmy the antidote he just couldn't in his right mind take the chance that it might harm him more.

"I have overseen the production of the serum myself doctor, however I fully understand your concern, I as well wish for no further harm to come to Jim. If it would allow you some form of comfort, you can always come to the science labs and give me a secondary opinion on the chemical make-up of the serum." Spock stated, "In fact, it might be best if you do so after you have finished repairing the damage that has been done to The Captain's younger body."

"Yeah, Yeah I'll do that as soon as I use the dermal regenerator to heal what I can with Jimmy. I doubt I'll be able to heal everything, cause the regenerator takes energy and I don't think after everything he's been through that Jimmy will be able to handle it without being down for the count for a while."

Spock inclined his head in a nod and moved to leave sickbay, Uhura threw a watery smile in Jimmy's direction before moving to follow after Spock, " Uhura?" Leonard called.

"Yeah Len?"

Leonard hesitated, looking back at the sleeping toddler on the bio-bed. "I was thinking, if you have some time...Jimmy might like something to help keep him calm when he wakes up. I was wondering if you might be able to get me something for him?"

Uhura brightened up almost immediately, "Yeah, I'll see what I can do to get something back here for him before he wakes up." She said. "Don't worry Len, we'll figure this out and Jim will be back before you know it."

"Thank you."

Leonard sighed as he sat back in a chair next to Jimmy's bed, he hadn't been able to fully heal all of the bruises that were scattered about on his body but he had taken care of the fractured sternum and wrist, the broken ribs along with his broken ankle and partially crushed windpipe. The kid would still he horribly sore when he woke up and he would have to take it easy with his ankle and wrist but other than that he should be okay. Or at least that was what Leonard was hoping would happen.

Now it was just a waiting game to see when Jimmy would start waking up, the hypo Christine had given him during his panic attack was due to wear off soon but it was entirely possible that Jimmy would sleep for a while longer since he had been so exhausted earlier.

Leonard glimpsed up just in time to see Uhura and Chekov stroll through the doors of sickbay with several items clutched in their arms. Chekov's face lit up at the sight of Jim but it was obviously marred by the sadness in his eyes when they fell on all the bruises still covering him.

"Zhe Keptain, he is doing better zhen before, Da?" He asked quietly as he tip toed over to Leonard. It was glaringly obvious he was trying to be quiet, not knowing whether or not it would wake Jimmy up.

"Yeah kid he's doin' a lot better, but he's not outta the woods yet though." Leonard huffed "What do you have there, Uhura?"

"You asked me to get some things for Jimmy to have when he wakes up, well Chekov and Scotty helped me program some of those things into the replicators."

"We put seweral different toys in zhe replicator if you vant to make them later." Chekov said cheerfully.

Leonard grabbed the toy as Chekov held it out, it was a stuffed puppy with dark brown fur and hazel colored eyes wearing a Starfleet dress uniform. "We vere going to put it in a blue uniform but zhe Lieutenant said he wasn't fond of medical professionals. Zhere is a blue uniform programmed in zhe replicators if he wants to change it!" 

"I'm sure he'll like it kid, what else do you have hidden behind your back _Lieutenant_?" He asked teasingly.

Uhura answered him with a smile pulling a soft looking blanket out from behind her back, "I've been in sickbay enough to know that the blankets here are itchy and uncomfortable at best and painful and irritating at worst, McCoy. I figured he might like something more comfortable that would be able to keep him warm."

"Thank you, Uhura. You too Chekov, thank you for your help."

Chekov gave Leonard a shy smile before averting his eyes and putting his focus on the small body on the bio-bed. "Doctor, I think zhe Keptain is waking up!" He called excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet as Jimmy's eyes twitched.

Leonard got up quickly moving to the head of the bed, he set the toy down on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through Jim's hair. "Jimmy, Darlin' you awake?"

Even though his eyes didn't open the increase of vital signs on the monitor along with the tensing of his facial muscles clued Leonard into the fact that Jimmy was awake. "C'mon kiddo show me those baby blues of yours, I know you are awake. I've got some gifts here from some people who really want to meet you."

Jimmy blinked his eyes open sluggishly. "Leonard?" He slurred softly.

"Hey, I'm right here buddy." Leonard helped Jimmy sit up in the bed, stacking several pillows up behind him so that he could sit up without struggling. "Now, That man right there is Mister Chekov, he's the top navigator for our ship and he's a genius. And that lady, I don't know if you remember it 'cause you were pretty out of it but she was on the transporter pad with us when we first brought you onto the Enterprise, she's the head of our linguistics department and she is a badas – a lovely lady." He whispered conspiratorially, pointing to Chekov and Uhura respectively.

"They made you some gifts, like I said, a stuffed toy and a blanket to keep you company while you're in medbay that way you don't get lonely." He said holding up the stuffed puppy and laying the blanket over top of Jim's lap.

Jimmy looked at Chekov and Uhura with unconcealed awe. "Y–You guys made these for me?"

"Yeah we did Jimmy. We want you to feel safe here, just like Leonard wants you to feel safe." Uhura said seriously. "It's not much but it'll be something to hold onto if you get scared. That way you don't feel like you have to run away again."

"Thank you, c–can I name him?" Jimmy asked clutching the puppy tightly to his chest like it was the best thing in the world and for all they knew maybe that was the best thing in this five year old's world.

Uhura, Chekov and Leonard all shared a look over Jim's head. "Of course you can buddy. What are you thinkin' about naming him?"

He looked down at the puppy, studying it with an intense scrutinizing stare for almost a full minute before turning back to the adults around him. "Bones. I wanna name him Bones. Is that alright?"

"That – That's a good name Jimmy. That's a really good name." Leonard crooned breathlessly as he rubbed up and down Jimmy's arm. He could feel Uhura and Chekov's gazes boring into his back.

Leonard sucked in a deep breath. "Jimmy." He started gently "I'm gonna have to go help some people on another part of the ship for a while. Do you think you'll be willing to stay in medbay while I'm gone?"

Jimmy looked down at Bones and swallowed shallowly, "Can – Can I come with you? I – I really don't like it here." He said softly as he rubbed his face into the top of his puppies head.

Leonard opened his mouth to start saying he had to stay here only to be cut off by Uhura. "Actually if it's alright with Leonard, I was thinking that maybe you could come up to the bridge with us? It would give you a chance to get some exercise and a change of scenery." She said with a smile. "Would you like that Jimmy?"

Jimmy look up excitedly at Leonard, "Can I Leonard? Please? I'll be good, I swear! I won't touch anything or be loud or distracting and–and–and I can get them stuff they need, I'm really good at getting stuff!" He babbled desperately hoping to convince Leonard to let him out of sickbay.

"As long as you promise to take it easy." Leonard said. "I mean it, no running around or picking up heavy stuff. Your ankle and wrist need time to heal. And no going anywhere without an adult with you okay?" He said sternly chuckling when Jimmy beamed up at him, it was the first real smile he had seen on the kids face and it made his heart melt, he didn't think he could deny Jimmy anything with that look on his face, least of all a trip to his favorite place on the ship.

"And you two better keep an eye on him! I'm serious if he comes back with even a hair outta place I'll have some unsavory hypo's waitin' for ya during your next physicals." He rounded on Uhura and Chekov, waving his index finger in their faces.

"Ve vill be wery careful with Jimmy! Not one iota vill be out of place, Da!"

"So, Jimmy do you like your puppy?"

"Y–Yes m–ma'am." Jimmy stuttered out.

Uhura and Chekov had managed to get Jimmy from medbay to the turbolift with little hassle but for some reason now that the three of them were alone together Jimmy seemed almost wary or confused whenever Uhura talked to him. He had almost immediately clung to Chekov once Leonard had left to go to the science labs, and it wasn't like he was mean or even rude to Uhura, he just seemed _worried_ about her presence.

Like he was waiting for her to do something, but Uhura couldn't figure out exactly what it was he was waiting for.

Granted she wasn't to offended by the behavior because he also seemed to be incredibly shy around Chekov as well. Besides it was probably the excitement of getting out of medbay wearing off and leaving him wary of the adults around him.

"Ve'll be on the bridge soon Jimmy, ve are currently studying a Nebula! You'll be able to see it out zhe front view screen. Isn't zat exciting!" Chekov asked cheerily, bouncing Jimmy a little in his arms as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

Jimmy looked up at Chekov and gave him a sad smile. "I guess. Winona says that space is to beautiful for me to look at and that I shouldn't get to look at something so beautiful when I took her husband away from her."

Uhura gaped at him in horror at the words that supposedly had come out of his mothers mouth and she could see Chekov's shocked expression over Jimmy's head. "Does she say things like that to you often, Jimmy?"

"Most of the time when she's home she tells me to stay out in the barn so that she can pretend like I don't exist. Sometimes she just ignores me." He said clearly unsure about whether or not he should be revealing these things.

Uhura was suddenly hit with the realization that Jimmy had been confused when she talked to him because he was so used to _his own mother_ ignoring him and telling him not to be around her because she couldn't stand the sight of him and she was horrified that he had been treated that way. She was about to reassure him that he was more than worthy of seeing beauty when the turbolift doors finally opened to reveal the bridge.

"Lieutenant, Ensign. I see you have brought a guest with you to your shift." Spock said as he glanced back from the Captain's chair.

"Yes Captain, ve thought that it would be nice for Jimmy to get out of medbay."

Spock nodded at the explanation and waited until Chekov had come around to the navigation consoles with Jimmy before getting up to greet the child in his arms. "I am Spock. I am the Captain of this vessel, may I know your name, child?" He asked softly, the senior bridge crew had all agreed that it would be best to go about interacting with Jimmy as if they had never met him before.

Jimmy looked at Spock with a small shy smile as he half hid his face in the fur of his puppy. "James T. K–Kirk, sir but everyone calls me Jimmy."

"Is Jimmy what you wish to be called?"

"M–Maybe?" Jimmy was obviously startled at being asked for his opinion. "That's what Mr. Pike used to call me b–but Hoshi-san used to call me Jamie sometimes, maybe–maybe t–that might be nice?"

"Then those names will be what this crew addresses you by for the duration of your stay here, now may I make a somewhat personal inquiry?" Spock waited for Jimmy's nod before continuing on, "You referenced a man named Mr. Pike, is the man you are referring Christopher Pike, a officer in StarFleet?"

The reaction was immediate as Jimmy perked right up, much like he had at the mention of getting out of medbay. "You know Chris? Is he here, can I see him –" He abruptly stopped talking and looked at Spock with horror on his face. "I–I'm sorry I shouldn't have talked to you like that and Winona says I can't call Mr. Pike by his first name. She gets real mad if I talk about him." He stammered out quickly.

"It's quite alright, Jamie." Spock assured him with a soothing gesture. "I asked you a question and you had every right to answer that question. To answer yours, yes I do know Christopher Pike but no he is not aboard this vessel, however if you wish I believe Lieutenant Uhura might be able to get in touch with him on your behalf."

"I would like that very much! Thank you Mr. Spock and Miss Uhura."

Uhura smiled at him and patted his head, "I'll get right on it." Then she watched as Chekov turned around and introduced Sulu to Jimmy. Sulu and Chekov spent several minutes drawing Jimmy out of his shell, talking to him about the nebula and letting him ask constant questions about their stations and consoles as well as what their jobs entailed.

He did however surprise everyone when about 10 minutes in when he turned and asked if he could sit with Spock in the Captains chair, even more surprising was the fact that Spock without complaint about regulations just leaned over and grabbed a hold of the five year old under the arms, hoisting him up and settling him firmly in his lap.

Uhura made sure to send the message to Admiral Pike through as needing an urgent response, with just Kirk's name in the subject line.


	7. Little Gold Riding Hood

A shaky intake of breath drew him out of his contemplation and he gazed up to find Uhura and Spock both standing near the entrance to sickbay looking at Jimmy with two of the saddest expressions he had ever seen on either of their faces. Uhura had one hand covering her mouth and tears gathering at the corner of her eyes while her other hand held a PADD that was nearly slipping out of her lax grip. Spock's mouth was open slightly in horror and his hands were dangling at his sides instead of clenched behind his back as usual.

"Leonard..." Uhura whispered as she took a step towards him.

"He'll be okay Uhura. I–He'll be okay." He whispered back, looking sadly at Jimmy's still form.

Leonard felt Christine squeeze his shoulder, "What are you two doing here?" He asked quietly, turning to face them so he didn't have to keep staring at Jim.

"I – " Uhura stopped short and cleared her throat before continuing. "I was coming to tell you that I started looking into Frank, Jim's step-dad, and I found something that might explain why he's so scared of medbay." She said softly, "I also found out that he's still living at Jim's moms farm in Riverside."

Leonard's expression hardened when Frank's name was mentioned, "What did you find?"

Uhura licked her lips before handing him the PADD, "He used to work as a janitor for one of the local hospitals. Apparently he was good friends with some of the doctors there and they let him _use_ some of the facilities after hours as long as they were allowed to stay and watch while he was there." She ground out, her voice overflowing with barely suppressed anger.

It didn't take a genius to put together what Jimmy being afraid of sickbay and his abusive step-fathers use of medical facilities could mean.

 _No wonder Jim hates doctors and sickbay as an adult, god only knows what those bastards did to him there._ Leonard thought as he scrolled through the data Uhura had put together on the PADD.

"I'm pretty sure Scotty and Sulu are trying to find a way to get us docked near Riverside for repairs next time we have a bit of shore leave after all this is over." Uhura said humorlessly as she took the PADD back.

Leonard smirked at her, "I hope so." Then, suddenly remembering that Spock was also in the room he turned to address him. "Spock, is this what you were here for as well?"

"Negative, Doctor I was coming to inform you that I believe to have synthesized an antidote that we can use to reverse the effects of the Delvian purity fruit."

"Are you sure? Did you make sure your little minions had a list of everything medical-wise that Jim is allergic to? I'm not taking the change of giving him something that might end up causing an allergic reaction, who knows what kind of shit could happen if something goes wrong now." Leonard huffed, as much as he wanted to just jump right in to give Jimmy the antidote he just couldn't in his right mind take the chance that it might harm him more.

"I have overseen the production of the serum myself doctor, however I fully understand your concern, I as well wish for no further harm to come to Jim. If it would allow you some form of comfort, you can always come to the science labs and give me a secondary opinion on the chemical make-up of the serum." Spock stated, "In fact, it might be best if you do so after you have finished repairing the damage that has been done to The Captain's younger body."

"Yeah, Yeah I'll do that as soon as I use the dermal regenerator to heal what I can with Jimmy. I doubt I'll be able to heal everything, cause the regenerator takes energy and I don't think after everything he's been through that Jimmy will be able to handle it without being down for the count for a while."

Spock inclined his head in a nod and moved to leave sickbay, Uhura threw a watery smile in Jimmy's direction before moving to follow after Spock, " Uhura?" Leonard called.

"Yeah Len?"

Leonard hesitated, looking back at the sleeping toddler on the bio-bed. "I was thinking, if you have some time...Jimmy might like something to help keep him calm when he wakes up. I was wondering if you might be able to get me something for him?"

Uhura brightened up almost immediately, "Yeah, I'll see what I can do to get something back here for him before he wakes up." She said. "Don't worry Len, we'll figure this out and Jim will be back before you know it."

"Thank you."

Leonard sighed as he sat back in a chair next to Jimmy's bed, he hadn't been able to fully heal all of the bruises that were scattered about on his body but he had taken care of the fractured sternum and wrist, the broken ribs along with his broken ankle and partially crushed windpipe. The kid would still he horribly sore when he woke up and he would have to take it easy with his ankle and wrist but other than that he should be okay. Or at least that was what Leonard was hoping would happen.

Now it was just a waiting game to see when Jimmy would start waking up, the hypo Christine had given him during his panic attack was due to wear off soon but it was entirely possible that Jimmy would sleep for a while longer since he had been so exhausted earlier.

Leonard glimpsed up just in time to see Uhura and Chekov stroll through the doors of sickbay with several items clutched in their arms. Chekov's face lit up at the sight of Jim but it was obviously marred by the sadness in his eyes when they fell on all the bruises still covering him.

"Zhe Keptain, he is doing better zhen before, Da?" He asked quietly as he tip toed over to Leonard. It was glaringly obvious he was trying to be quiet, not knowing whether or not it would wake Jimmy up.

"Yeah kid he's doin' a lot better, but he's not outta the woods yet though." Leonard huffed "What do you have there, Uhura?"

"You asked me to get some things for Jimmy to have when he wakes up, well Chekov and Scotty helped me program some of those things into the replicators."

"We put seweral different toys in zhe replicator if you vant to make them later." Chekov said cheerfully.

Leonard grabbed the toy as Chekov held it out, it was a stuffed puppy with dark brown fur and hazel colored eyes wearing a Starfleet dress uniform. "We vere going to put it in a blue uniform but zhe Lieutenant said he wasn't fond of medical professionals. Zhere is a blue uniform programmed in zhe replicators if he wants to change it!" 

"I'm sure he'll like it kid, what else do you have hidden behind your back _Lieutenant_?" He asked teasingly.

Uhura answered him with a smile pulling a soft looking blanket out from behind her back, "I've been in sickbay enough to know that the blankets here are itchy and uncomfortable at best and painful and irritating at worst, McCoy. I figured he might like something more comfortable that would be able to keep him warm."

"Thank you, Uhura. You too Chekov, thank you for your help."

Chekov gave Leonard a shy smile before averting his eyes and putting his focus on the small body on the bio-bed. "Doctor, I think zhe Keptain is waking up!" He called excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet as Jimmy's eyes twitched.

Leonard got up quickly moving to the head of the bed, he set the toy down on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through Jim's hair. "Jimmy, Darlin' you awake?"

Even though his eyes didn't open the increase of vital signs on the monitor along with the tensing of his facial muscles clued Leonard into the fact that Jimmy was awake. "C'mon kiddo show me those baby blues of yours, I know you are awake. I've got some gifts here from some people who really want to meet you."

Jimmy blinked his eyes open sluggishly. "Leonard?" He slurred softly.

"Hey, I'm right here buddy." Leonard helped Jimmy sit up in the bed, stacking several pillows up behind him so that he could sit up without struggling. "Now, That man right there is Mister Chekov, he's the top navigator for our ship and he's a genius. And that lady, I don't know if you remember it 'cause you were pretty out of it but she was on the transporter pad with us when we first brought you onto the Enterprise, she's the head of our linguistics department and she is a badas – a lovely lady." He whispered conspiratorially, pointing to Chekov and Uhura respectively.

"They made you some gifts, like I said, a stuffed toy and a blanket to keep you company while you're in medbay that way you don't get lonely." He said holding up the stuffed puppy and laying the blanket over top of Jim's lap.

Jimmy looked at Chekov and Uhura with unconcealed awe. "Y–You guys made these for me?"

"Yeah we did Jimmy. We want you to feel safe here, just like Leonard wants you to feel safe." Uhura said seriously. "It's not much but it'll be something to hold onto if you get scared. That way you don't feel like you have to run away again."

"Thank you, c–can I name him?" Jimmy asked clutching the puppy tightly to his chest like it was the best thing in the world and for all they knew maybe that was the best thing in this five year old's world.

Uhura, Chekov and Leonard all shared a look over Jim's head. "Of course you can buddy. What are you thinkin' about naming him?"

He looked down at the puppy, studying it with an intense scrutinizing stare for almost a full minute before turning back to the adults around him. "Bones. I wanna name him Bones. Is that alright?"

"That – That's a good name Jimmy. That's a really good name." Leonard crooned breathlessly as he rubbed up and down Jimmy's arm. He could feel Uhura and Chekov's gazes boring into his back.

Leonard sucked in a deep breath. "Jimmy." He started gently "I'm gonna have to go help some people on another part of the ship for a while. Do you think you'll be willing to stay in medbay while I'm gone?"

Jimmy looked down at Bones and swallowed shallowly, "Can – Can I come with you? I – I really don't like it here." He said softly as he rubbed his face into the top of his puppies head.

Leonard opened his mouth to start saying he had to stay here only to be cut off by Uhura. "Actually if it's alright with Leonard, I was thinking that maybe you could come up to the bridge with us? It would give you a chance to get some exercise and a change of scenery." She said with a smile. "Would you like that Jimmy?"

Jimmy look up excitedly at Leonard, "Can I Leonard? Please? I'll be good, I swear! I won't touch anything or be loud or distracting and–and–and I can get them stuff they need, I'm really good at getting stuff!" He babbled desperately hoping to convince Leonard to let him out of sickbay.

"As long as you promise to take it easy." Leonard said. "I mean it, no running around or picking up heavy stuff. Your ankle and wrist need time to heal. And no going anywhere without an adult with you okay?" He said sternly chuckling when Jimmy beamed up at him, it was the first real smile he had seen on the kids face and it made his heart melt, he didn't think he could deny Jimmy anything with that look on his face, least of all a trip to his favorite place on the ship.

"And you two better keep an eye on him! I'm serious if he comes back with even a hair outta place I'll have some unsavory hypo's waitin' for ya during your next physicals." He rounded on Uhura and Chekov, waving his index finger in their faces.

"Ve vill be wery careful with Jimmy! Not one iota vill be out of place, Da!"

"So, Jimmy do you like your puppy?"

"Y–Yes m–ma'am." Jimmy stuttered out.

Uhura and Chekov had managed to get Jimmy from medbay to the turbolift with little hassle but for some reason now that the three of them were alone together Jimmy seemed almost wary or confused whenever Uhura talked to him. He had almost immediately clung to Chekov once Leonard had left to go to the science labs, and it wasn't like he was mean or even rude to Uhura, he just seemed _worried_ about her presence.

Like he was waiting for her to do something, but Uhura couldn't figure out exactly what it was he was waiting for.

Granted she wasn't to offended by the behavior because he also seemed to be incredibly shy around Chekov as well. Besides it was probably the excitement of getting out of medbay wearing off and leaving him wary of the adults around him.

"Ve'll be on the bridge soon Jimmy, ve are currently studying a Nebula! You'll be able to see it out zhe front view screen. Isn't zat exciting!" Chekov asked cheerily, bouncing Jimmy a little in his arms as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

Jimmy looked up at Chekov and gave him a sad smile. "I guess. Winona says that space is to beautiful for me to look at and that I shouldn't get to look at something so beautiful when I took her husband away from her."

Uhura gaped at him in horror at the words that supposedly had come out of his mothers mouth and she could see Chekov's shocked expression over Jimmy's head. "Does she say things like that to you often, Jimmy?"

"Most of the time when she's home she tells me to stay out in the barn so that she can pretend like I don't exist. Sometimes she just ignores me." He said clearly unsure about whether or not he should be revealing these things.

Uhura was suddenly hit with the realization that Jimmy had been confused when she talked to him because he was so used to _his own mother_ ignoring him and telling him not to be around her because she couldn't stand the sight of him and she was horrified that he had been treated that way. She was about to reassure him that he was more than worthy of seeing beauty when the turbolift doors finally opened to reveal the bridge.

"Lieutenant, Ensign. I see you have brought a guest with you to your shift." Spock said as he glanced back from the Captain's chair.

"Yes Captain, ve thought that it would be nice for Jimmy to get out of medbay."

Spock nodded at the explanation and waited until Chekov had come around to the navigation consoles with Jimmy before getting up to greet the child in his arms. "I am Spock. I am the Captain of this vessel, may I know your name, child?" He asked softly, the senior bridge crew had all agreed that it would be best to go about interacting with Jimmy as if they had never met him before.

Jimmy looked at Spock with a small shy smile as he half hid his face in the fur of his puppy. "James T. K–Kirk, sir but everyone calls me Jimmy."

"Is Jimmy what you wish to be called?"

"M–Maybe?" Jimmy was obviously startled at being asked for his opinion. "That's what Mr. Pike used to call me b–but Hoshi-san used to call me Jamie sometimes, maybe–maybe t–that might be nice?"

"Then those names will be what this crew addresses you by for the duration of your stay here, now may I make a somewhat personal inquiry?" Spock waited for Jimmy's nod before continuing on, "You referenced a man named Mr. Pike, is the man you are referring Christopher Pike, a officer in StarFleet?"

The reaction was immediate as Jimmy perked right up, much like he had at the mention of getting out of medbay. "You know Chris? Is he here, can I see him –" He abruptly stopped talking and looked at Spock with horror on his face. "I–I'm sorry I shouldn't have talked to you like that and Winona says I can't call Mr. Pike by his first name. She gets real mad if I talk about him." He stammered out quickly.

"It's quite alright, Jamie." Spock assured him with a soothing gesture. "I asked you a question and you had every right to answer that question. To answer yours, yes I do know Christopher Pike but no he is not aboard this vessel, however if you wish I believe Lieutenant Uhura might be able to get in touch with him on your behalf."

"I would like that very much! Thank you Mr. Spock and Miss Uhura."

Uhura smiled at him and patted his head, "I'll get right on it." Then she watched as Chekov turned around and introduced Sulu to Jimmy. Sulu and Chekov spent several minutes drawing Jimmy out of his shell, talking to him about the nebula and letting him ask constant questions about their stations and consoles as well as what their jobs entailed.

He did however surprise everyone when about 10 minutes in when he turned and asked if he could sit with Spock in the Captains chair, even more surprising was the fact that Spock without complaint about regulations just leaned over and grabbed a hold of the five year old under the arms, hoisting him up and settling him firmly in his lap.

Uhura made sure to send the message to Admiral Pike through as needing an urgent response, with just Kirk's name in the subject line.

Leonard sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly as he looked over the screen for what felt like the millionth time but no matter how many times he looked the results didn't change, all of the information lined up and it seemed like Spock truly had made a serum to change Jimmy back. But for some reason he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach and Leonard had learned over years as Jim's best friend that if he had a bad feeling chances were something bad was going to happen.

He wanted to head up to the bridge and see Jimmy, the short vidds that Uhura and the rest of the bridge crew had been sending were nice and it was good to see Jimmy interacting in a way that wasn't heart breaking but it wasn't the same as seeing it in person and just being around Jimmy. Finally Leonard decided that he had enough of staring at the chemical make-up of the serum, from what he has looked at so far it should work, and he was about to head up to the bridge when his comm started buzzing in his pocket.

"Bridge to McCoy."

"Go ahead Sulu."

"You might wanna get up here, Doc. Spock says that Jimmy is running a fever of about 103.5 degrees."

Leonard bolted up out of the chair, making sure to grab the med kit he brought with him just in case of an emergency, "What do you mean he's running a fever? When did it start, what was he doing at the time, hell is he showin' any other symptoms of is it just a fever?" He practically yelled into the comm unit as he ran to the nearest turbo-lift, repeatedly jamming the button that would take him up to the bridge.

"I'm sorry Doctor I don't know –."

"It doesn't matter, I'm right here where is he." Leonard asked as he stepped off the turbo-lift, he spotted Jimmy sitting on Chekov's lap at the navigation station, his cheeks were flushed red but the rest of him looked horribly pale. "Hey Darlin', Sulu tells me you aren't feelin' so well, you mind tellin' me what's hurting ya."

"I feel hot and my stomach doesn't feel good."

"Has he eaten or drank anything since I've been gone?"

"Negative Doctor he has not consumed anything." Spock answered.

"Okay, Jimmy I'm gonna go ahead and scan you with the tri-corder and see what wrong." He said with a little smile, he put on hand on Jimmy's leg as he pulled out the tri-corder and started up the scan. It took a few seconds but the results had him frowning down at the little machine. "Have any of you been feeling under the weather lately? Chills, fever, achy joints? Anything like that?"

All he got in response was a chorus of 'no's' "Jimmy I hate to say it sweetheart but you're gonna have to go back to medbay." He sighed at the crestfallen and slightly panicked look the kid sent him, "I'm sorry buddy but you have a mutated strain of Levodian Flu, I need you to be in the medbay for treatment and I can't take the chance of this spreading around the ship."

"Okay, Leonard." Jimmy sniffled.

"I really am sorry buddy, how about as soon as the two day contagion period is over you can come back up here and Ensign Chekov can take you down to sickbay for me while I talk to Captain Spock about something. I'll see you soon darlin'."

He watched Chekov take Jimmy into the turbo-lift before turning back to face Spock. "We have a problem."

"Are you not able to treat Jim for the Levodian Flu?" Spock questioned.

"I will be but I was more talking about the fact that we won't be able to use the antidote on him until we are damn sure the flu is gone and with this mutated strain that could be anywhere from two to five days. And on top of that I have a bad feeling about the antidote."

Spock took a step closer to Leonard and folded his hands behind his back, "It is illogical to have a 'bad feeling' against an inanimate mix of chemicals Doctor."

"Yeah, yeah but I've learned over the years I've known Jim that when I get a bad feeling about giving something to him, it usually means something bad is gonna happen." Leonard said with a huff.


	8. Jimmy and the Very Bad No Good Day

Jimmy whined to himself as the soft thud of footsteps reached his ears in his hiding place in the vents. He could faintly hear the sound of two men talking outside of the vents, one of them was definitely Leonard but he didn't know who else was out there. The other man sounded...what was the word he had learned...monotone?

 _'Yeah monotone was the word.'_ He thought trying to distract himself from the pain that was flaring up in his ankle every time he so much as twitched.

"Jimmy?" He heard Leonard call out tentatively. "You in there kiddo?"

Suddenly a bright light shined down the shaft and Jimmy let out a low whimper as a headache that he had not noticed developing made it's self apparently known in his temples, he shifted to try and massage his temples only to let out another softer whimper when his ankle protested the movement.

He couldn't make out what Leonard was saying over the pounding of blood rushing through his veins as the various aches and pains started shooting through him, but the low baritone of Leonard's voice did sooth him somewhat.

"I know you're scared and you're in pain and you have no idea where you are but I promise you aren't in trouble for running off okay?"

Jimmy wanted desperately to believe him but all he could think about was all of the times Frank had used those same lines, those same whispered words of reassurance, to goad him out of his hiding place so that he could turn around and punish him for making him waste time looking for him. The other male voice said something to low for him to make out, only adding to his suspicions.

"I don't want you to be scared okay? I'm not going to say anything to Frank about this okay?"

' _He knows about Frank? But he's to young to be one of Frank's friends and I've never met him before today?'_ He thought _'Maybe someone had actually realized what Frank was doing to him and taken him away and that's why he was on a strange starship..."_

He didn't manage to finish that thought as a loud noise, probably from a comm unit, sounded outside the vents, startling him out of his thoughts and causing him to bang his ankle into the side of the vent. The pain that shot through his ankle nearly made him pass out as little black dots swarmed in his vision and his ears were filled with a horrible static noise. Leonard's voice came through his ear warbled and distorted while his head pounded.

Jimmy could vaguely hear Leonard asking if he was alright and if he had hurt anything, "L – Leonard?" He called out softly making the split second decision to try and apologize in the hopes that whatever punishment Leonard dealt out to him would be followed by a hypo or even a blow to the head that would knock him out and give him time to heal.

"I'm sorry I r– ran away."

"It's okay, Like I told you I'm not mad I just want you to come out so I can make you feel better. I know you hurt your ankle when you were in the shuttle bay, how a bout you come out and let me take a look at it, huh? That sound okay to you?"

Jimmy gasped as he suddenly remembered his failed trip to the shuttle bay and how he had left that engineer on the ground bleeding from his nose after he hurt his ankle. "I didn't mean to hurt the man in the shuttle bay! I–I–I swear I thought h–he was gonna hurt me!" Jimmy sobbed hoping that he hadn't accidentally ruined his chances at coming out of this encounter without significant injuries.

"I know and you didn't really hurt him, there wasn't even a scratch on him. You aren't going to get in any trouble for that." He heard Leonard say soothingly, Frank had never tried to justify any of the minor injuries he had landed on Frank during their scuffles and he certainly never told him he wouldn't get in trouble for it.

 _'Usually Frank says that if I come out soon he won't be as angry and won't hurt me as much.'_

"Y-you promise?" He asked hopefully.

"Yeah, yeah I promise, sugar." Leonard said. "You think you're about ready to work your way outta those vents? 'Cause I really need to take a look at that ankle o' yours an make sure the rest a you is alright."

Jimmy glanced down at his ankle and bit his lip, he wanted to go to Leonard, he really did but he wasn't completely sure the older boy was telling the truth, not yet at least. He could hold out for a little while longer. Just until he was sure.

He laid back against the metal shaft and listened as Leonard attempted to coax him out of the vents and the longer he laid there the more his resolve weakened. Frank never stayed for this long to try and get him out of his hiding places, usually he tried for about five minutes and then either tried to force him out or he waited until Jimmy absolutely had to get himself out and then attacked him as soon as he came out.

Finally, his mind made up, he shimmied his way to the end of the vent trying his hardest along the way to not upset his injuries further, once he was half way out he felt Leonard gingerly place firm arm around his stomach but instead of yanking him out like Jimmy had expected him to he merely held onto him and kept him stable as he pushed himself the rest of the way out.

Leonard had a sad expression on his face when he finally finished crawling out though it changed to relief once he had Jimmy pressed against his chest and cradled in his arms.

"You ready to go get all fixed up, Darlin'?" Jimmy made sure to glance over his shoulder as Leonard carried him away, trying to get a glimpse at the other man he had definitely heard earlier, but he couldn't find anyone.

"I'm sure if we try really hard we can convince Nurse Chapel to get you somethin' nice from the replicators to eat after we're all done fixin' ya. Would you like that?" Leonard was rambling. Jimmy knew that. He also knew that it was being done in an attempt to stop him from tensing up further against Leonard's chest but he couldn't help it, he really couldn't.

Usually Jimmy could talk himself out of what Frank and Winona called "Stupid Fucking Tantrums' but for some reason he couldn't this time. Most of the times he could focus on something else like the time His brother Sam took him to the park with him and pushed him on the swings for the whole day before he left that night and Jimmy wasn't able to see him again.

Usually he could focus on that day, on the smells, the sounds, the feel of the wind rushing through his hair as he soared back and forth through the air, how it felt like he was flying. But this time it wasn't working, his brain wasn't letting him focus on something else and put the thought of where he was going out of his mind.

Instead it was doing something much worse.

" _Don't worry Jimmy, this won't even leave a scar when we're done." He heard Doctor Andreas coo to him as he handed Frank a laser scalpel. He shivered on the bio-bed as he felt the cold air of the med bay rushing over his bare legs. A whimper left his lips as he watched the laser scalpel slowly descend towards his bare thighs._

"Do I really n–need to go? M–My ankle doesn't even hurt that much!" Jimmy pleaded against Leonard's shoulder as he tried to force himself to think of how the hot sun felt on his skin that day in the park instead of the way the laser scalpel had felt as it seared through his flesh.

He heard Leonard sigh above him and felt him tighten his grip a bit, "Jimmy you need to get fixed up, I know you don't like sickbay but you have to go." He said sternly, they were nearing the doors that led to the medbay and Jimmy could smell the sharp tinge of sterilizing liquids.

 _Jimmy whimpered as he felt Doctor Mathers' hand grip one of his arms, he had long since stopped pleading for the Doctor to stop touching him. A gasp wormed it way out of his throat when the doctor pulled him up to sit against the cold steel of the lab table and forced his mouth open to shove another pill down his throat. He heard Frank chuckle in the background as he gagged and tried to spit the pill back out, only for Doctor Mathers to hold his mouth closed._

"W–Wait! I don't need to go, really! I–I'll be good please!" Jimmy squeaked as he started struggling, desperately clawing at the back of Leonard's shirt, trying to pull himself up and over Leonard's shoulder. He couldn't go in there, he couldn't, not when he wasn't able to force his mind to focus on one of the only good memories he had.

Once again Leonard tightened his hold on the struggling toddler as he stepped through the threshold into sickbay. "It's okay Darlin', nothing bad is gonna happen to ya." He whispered soothingly one hand moving to rub up and down Jimmy's back.

 _Frank was laughing at him while he squealed at Doctor Andreas to stop, his butt was a dark shade of cherry red and it throbbed in time with his heartbeat. The doctor finally stopped and ran a hand soothingly up and down on the heated flesh, the latex of his gloves leaving a path of small red bumps in its wake as Jimmy's body reacted to the material._

"NO! Please! I–I'll be good I promise! Please! Please, let me down! I don't wanna go in there!" Jimmy didn't even notice as his legs started kicking at Leonard's stomach, the pain of his ankle was drowned out by the phantom pains his brain kept bringing to the forefront of his mind.

Leonard was straining to keep his hold on the boy without hurting him further as he frantically flailed. "Ji–Jimmy! You're alright I promise! You need to stop struggling you're going to hurt yourself!" Leonard called out.

" _You're alright Jimmy I promise. It'll feel better later." Doctor Mathers was spreading his legs apart and wrapping his fat, overly warm fingers around Jimmy's private area. It hurt as the older man squeezed and pulled at the sensitive flesh._

"PLEASE, PLEASE, I'M SORRY, I'LL BE GOOD, PLEASE LET ME GO!" He wailed tears streaming down his face as he gasped and whimpered, barely able to drag in enough air when he started to hyperventilate. He could barely see the nice blonde nurse from before standing off to the side through the haze of his tears.

Leonard was prying his hands out of his shirt and placing him down on the bio-bed.

 _Frank had forgot to put Jimmy's wrists in the medical restraints for once and as soon as he and Doctor Andreas turned their backs to him Jimmy darted off the table, but he hadn't even made it to the door before Frank was grabbing the back of his shirt and yanking him right off the ground.  
_

Leonard was grabbing him and holding him tightly against his chest as he took in fast, shaky breaths, desperately trying to get in more air so he could fight against that strong hold.

"LET ME GO! PLEASE, LEONARD LET ME GO! I'M SORRY I'M SORRY PLEASE, LEONARD!"

Jimmy was screaming, his whole body shaking against Leonard as he slowly started to run out of energy to struggle against Leonard's grip.

He saw the nurse come back out of the corner of his eye, he felt the pin prick of a hypospray being deposited in his neck and seconds later his screams were tapering off into sobs and eventually whimpers as the drugs worked their way through his veins.

"You're okay, baby boy, I promise. No one's gonna hurt you, it's okay, it's okay. Just settle down, Darlin' I've gotcha." Leonard crooned into Jimmy's hair as he rested his cheek against the top of his head. "That's it Jimmy, you're doing good. Just go to sleep, Darlin' you'll feel better when you wake up. Just go to sleep."

He couldn't make out the rest of what Leonard was saying but he heard the words whispered against his hair as his vision faded away to black and he was left to a peaceful dreamless sleep.

"Thank you, Uhura. You too Chekov, thank you for your help."

Jimmy heard Leonard's voice talking to someone as he slowly but surely fought his way back to full consciousness. His body ached, but it was no where near as bad as it had been when he was originally brought into the medbay and it certainly wasn't even in the same light year as his pain usually was after a trip to the medbay back in Iowa.

 _'Leonard wasn't lying when he said he was going to make me feel better.' He thought star-struck by the realization._

He could feel a pair of eyes focus on his body intently as the conversation between Leonard and who ever else was around lulled to a stop. "Doctor, I think zhe Keptain is waking up!" He heard a deeply accented voice call excitedly, the loudness of the voice which Jimmy deduced was coming from a boy, caused his eyes to twitch slightly as the tail end of his headache came creeping back in.

Jimmy heard Leonard get up and move towards the head of his bed, he felt something being put down next to where his hand was splayed at the edge of the bed, Leonard's hands carded slowly through his hair.

"Jimmy, Darlin' you awake?"

Jimmy didn't respond and instead kept his eyes closed as much as he could without it seeming like he was scrunching them closed.

"C'mon kiddo show me those baby blues of yours, I know you are awake. I've got some gifts here from some people who really want to meet you."

That got his attention as Jimmy blinked his eyes open sluggishly. "Leonard?" He slurred softly, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth for a second as he swallowed.

"Hey, I'm right here buddy." Leonard helped Jimmy sit up in the bed, stacking several pillows up behind him so that he could sit up without struggling then he turned and alerted Jimmy to the presence of two people, a boy who he assumed was the owner of the accented voice from before and a slightly intimidating lady who was perched on the edge of a chair off to the left of his bed.

"Now, That man right there is Mister Chekov, he's the top navigator for our ship and he's a genius. And that lady, I don't know if you remember it 'cause you were pretty out of it but she was on the transporter pad with us when we first brought you onto the Enterprise, she's the head of our linguistics department and she is a badas – a lovely lady." He whispered conspiratorially, pointing to Chekov and Uhura respectively.

"They made you some gifts, like I said, a stuffed toy and a blanket to keep you company while you're in medbay that way you don't get lonely." Leonard said holding up a stuffed puppy, with soft looking brown fur and pretty hazel eyes, it had on a formal version of the StarFleet uniform. He also laid a warm, soft fleece-like blanket down over top of his lap.

A warm feeling bubbled up in his chest as he looked at the gifts that were laid out in front of him. _'No one's ever given me gifts before.'_ He thought as looked up at the two adults with awe written all over his face. "Y–You guys made these for me?"

"Yeah we did Jimmy. We want you to feel safe here, just like Leonard wants you to feel safe." Uhura said seriously. "It's not much but it'll be something to hold onto if you get scared. That way you don't feel like you have to run away again."

Jimmy had to stop himself from sobbing at those words, no one had ever cared enough to make sure he didn't want to run away. "Thank you, c–can I name him?" Jimmy asked clutching the puppy tightly to his chest, he wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to let this gift out of his sight. He only hoped that Frank wouldn't take it away once he eventually went back to Riverside.

"Of course you can buddy. What are you thinkin' about naming him?"

He looked down at the puppy, studying it with an intense scrutinizing stare for almost a full minute, he wasn't sure why but something in the back of his mind was whispering that it looked like Bones, but he didn't know what Bones was. Deciding that the name for some reason suited the puppy he turned back to the adults around him. "Bones. I wanna name him Bones. Is that alright?"

"That – That's a good name Jimmy. That's a really good name." Leonard crooned breathlessly as he rubbed up and down Jimmy's arm. Miss Uhura and Mister Chekov were shooting slightly worried glances at Leonard's back that Jimmy couldn't understand.

Leonard glanced down at him with an apprehensive expression before sucking in a deep breath. "Jimmy." He started gently "I'm gonna have to go help some people on another part of the ship for a while. Do you think you'll be willing to stay in medbay while I'm gone?"

Jimmy looked down at Bones and swallowed shallowly, "Can – Can I come with you? I – I really don't like it here." He whispered softly as he rubbed his face into the top of his puppies head, he barely managed to keep himself from remembering all the times Frank had left him at the hospital with Doctor Andreas or Doctor Mathers.

Leonard opened his mouth to start saying something, only for Miss Uhura to cut him off. "Actually if it's alright with Leonard, I was thinking that maybe you could come up to the bridge with us? It would give you a chance to get some exercise and a change of scenery." She said with a smile. "Would you like that Jimmy?"

Jimmy felt his face light up as he thought about being able to get out of sickbay without having to resort to running away and making Leonard mad at him. "Can I Leonard? Please? I'll be good, I swear! I won't touch anything or be loud or distracting and–and–and I can get them stuff they need, I'm really good at getting stuff!" He babbled desperately hoping to convince Leonard so that he could get out of here.

Leonard raised an eyebrow at him, "As long as you promise to take it easy." Leonard said. "I mean it, no running around or picking up heavy stuff. Your ankle and wrist need time to heal. And no going anywhere without an adult with you okay?" He said sternly but with a small smile adorning his face.

Then Leonard turned around to face Uhura and Chekov with a frown in place of the smile. "And you two better keep an eye on him! I'm serious if he comes back with even a hair outta place I'll have some unsavory hypo's waitin' for ya during your next physicals." He said to them waving his index finger in their faces.

Chekov looked at Jimmy with a bright smile on his face. "Ve vill be wery careful with Jimmy! Not one iota vill be out of place, Da!"

"So, Jimmy do you like your puppy?" Uhura asked him as they stepped onto the turbo-lift and hit the button that would take them to the bridge.

"Y–Yes m–ma'am." Jimmy stuttered out, Uhura seemed nice but he couldn't help but be confused at the fact that she was willing to talk to him at all, Winona rarely ever even acknowledged his existence and when she did she never had anything nice to say. Unlike Uhura who had been trying to get him to talk to her since they had left the sickbay.

He hadn't said anything because he didn't want to take the chance that something he said would make her mad and she would take the gifts she and Chekov had given him away.

"Ve'll be on the bridge soon Jimmy, ve are currently studying a Nebula! You'll be able to see it out zhe front view screen. Isn't zat exciting!" Chekov asked cheerily, bouncing Jimmy a little in his arms as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

Jimmy looked up at Chekov and gave him a sad smile as he thought back to the last time he had tried to talk about that stars that captivated him to Winona. "I guess. Winona says that space is to beautiful for me even though I like it and that I shouldn't get to look at something so beautiful since I took what made her life so beautiful away from her ."

Uhura was looking at his with a horrified expression and he could feel Chekov's arms tighten around him but before he could stutter out an apology for offending them Uhura started speaking again. "Does she say things like that to you often, Jimmy?"

Jimmy thought back to the few times his 'mother' had talked to him and the things she had said to him. Most of them were not exactly pleasant so he settled on the least offensive one he could think of. "Most of the time when she's home she tells me to stay out in the barn so that she can pretend like I don't exist. Sometimes she just ignores me." He said unsure about whether or not he should be revealing these things if they might make these people hurt him for talking bad about another adult behind their backs. He's heard Frank talk about back stabbing assholes who try to tell him about how he should run his household when they weren't even courageous enough to say it straight to his face.

Jimmy watched as Uhura opened her mouth to say something to him but she was cut off by the turbo-lift opening.

The monotone voice he had heard in the hallway outside the vents echoed across the bridge as it addressed them. "Lieutenant, Ensign. I see you have brought a guest with you to your shift."

Jimmy couldn't see the man because he was hidden by the back of the Captain's chair but Chekov had already started moving towards him anyway. "Yes Captain, ve thought that it would be nice for Jimmy to get out of medbay."

The owner of the voice, who Jimmy could now see was not in fact a man but instead a humanoid alien, turned back to look at them. Jimmy tried to think back to the few alien race names he knew and could remember from the times he had snuck glances at Winona's PADDs when she was home from her missions. It his memory served him right then the pointed ears and slight green tinge to the males skin meant that he was either a Romulan or a Vulcan. But Winona said that Romulans were monsters that should be put to death, so that meant StarFleet probably wouldn't let them join.

 _'So this guy is a Vulcan?'_ Jimmy thought to himself.

Jimmy watched as the Vulcan stood up and greeted him. "I am Spock. I am the Captain of this vessel, may I know your name, child?" He asked softly.

Jimmy looked at Spock with a small shy smile as he half hid his face in the fur of his puppy. "James T. K–Kirk, sir but everyone calls me Jimmy." 

"Is Jimmy what you wish to be called?"

 _No one had ever asked him what he wanted to be called before._ _'Maybe these people aren't like Frank? They haven't been mean to me even once!'_

"M–Maybe?" Jimmy was startled at being asked for his opinion. "That's what Mr. Pike used to call me?" He said uncertainly.

"Then that name will be what this crew addresses you by for the duration of your stay here, now may I make a somewhat personal inquiry?" Spock waited for Jimmy's nod before continuing on, "You referenced a man named Mr. Pike, is the man you are referring to, Christopher Pike, an officer in StarFleet?"

Jimmy perked up at Mr. Spock's question. ' _Does he know Chris? Maybe I can talk to him? He can tell me for sure if these people are okay.'_ He thought happily as he imagined being able to talk to Chris again. He hadn't been able to talk to Chris since that one time he had came to Riverside and found Winona forcing him to sleep in the barn during winter. Chris had tried to get the police to take him away from Winona and Frank after that but Frank's friends at the police station had stopped him from doing anything. The last thing he remembered Chris saying was that Winona had taking out a 'restraint order' or something that made it so he couldn't come visit Jimmy anymore.

Jimmy had cried for nearly a whole day when he finally realized what exactly that meant. Or he had cried until Frank came and beat him till he shut him up, Winona had watched it happen and then told him to stop talking about Chris.

"You know Chris? Is he here, can I see him –" Suddenly Jimmy remembered that Frank hated it when he got excited and badgered him with questions all at once, he still had a scar across his back from when Frank had taught him not to do that again. "I–I'm sorry I shouldn't have talked to you like that and Winona says I can't call Mr. Pike by his first name. She gets real mad if I talk about him." He stammered out quickly.

"It's quite alright, Jimmy." Spock assured him with a soothing gesture. "I asked you a question and you had every right to answer that question. To answer yours, yes I do know Christopher Pike but no he is not aboard this vessel, however if you wish I believe Lieutenant Uhura might be able to get in touch with him on your behalf."

Jimmy glanced at Uhura who had a small smile on her face and when she saw him looking at her she gave him a small nod. "I would like that very much! Thank you Mr. Spock and Miss Uhura."

"I'll get right on it."

Uhura walked away to go sit down at her station and Chekov turned them around to face an Asian man sitting at the helmsman's console. He introduced himself as Mister Sulu and asked Jimmy what his stuffed puppies name was before he and Chekov started telling him about the bright mass of swirling colors that lied beyond the front view screen of the bridge.

Jimmy tentatively asked questions about their stations, trying to learn and absorb as much information as he could that way if for some reason they got mad at him, he would at least have learned something. But eventually his attention was drawn away from the two men and back to the Vulcan who was sitting in the Captain's chair behind him. His mouth jumped ahead of his mind, like it usually did when he was excited and trying to learn things, and asked Mister Spock if he could sit with him before he had a chance to stop himself.

To his surprise Mister Spock just reached forward and plucked him out of Chekov's lap to settle him firmly in his lap. He spent a minute or two sussing out whether or not the Captain was willing to listen to his questions and once he saw a slight amount of amusement in Spock's eyes he launched full force into asking questions about anything and everything he thought a captain might know.

It was truly unfortunate that since Spock's body temperature was naturally higher than Jimmy's he didn't realize he was getting a fever until his stomach was suddenly rebelling against him.

Jimmy coughed wetly into the sleeve of his medical scrubs as he heard Sulu say into his comm unit, "Bridge to McCoy."

Leonard's voice came threw the unit. "Go ahead Sulu."

Sulu threw a glance at Jimmy before talking into the communicator again. "You might wanna get up here, Doc. Spock says that Jimmy is running a fever of about 103.5 degrees."

"What do you mean he's running a fever? When did it start, what was he doing at the time, hell is he showin' any other symptoms or is it just a fever?" Jimmy was slightly startled when he heard Leonard yell into the comm.

 _'Is he mad at me for getting sick?'_ He thought panicking, he liked Leonard he didn't want him to be mad at him.

"It doesn't matter, I'm right here where is he." The turbo-lift doors opened and Leonard stepped out glancing around the bridge before his eyes settled on Jimmy, the look in his eyes confused Jimmy though because it didn't look like anger but Jimmy wasn't quite sure what it looked like. "Hey Darlin', Sulu tells me you aren't feelin' so well, you mind tellin' me what's hurting ya."

"I feel hot and my stomach doesn't feel good." Jimmy said. ' _Concern. That's what that look is.'_

Leonard looked at Spock before asking, "Has he eaten or drank anything since I've been gone?"

"Negative Doctor he has not consumed anything." Spock answered.

"Okay, Jimmy I'm gonna go ahead and scan you with the tri-corder and see what's wrong." He said with a little smile, he rested one hand on Jimmy's leg lightly as he pulled out the tri-corder and started up the scan. It took a few seconds but Jimmy saw how the results had him frowning down at the little machine. He watched as Leonard turned to address the crew members currently gathered on the bridge. "Have any of you been feeling under the weather lately? Chills, fever, achy joints? Anything like that?"

A chorus of 'no's' answered him and he turned to look at Jimmy with a sad smile that sent a little shock of panic up his spine. "Jimmy I hate to say it sweetheart but you're gonna have to go back to medbay." He sighed. "I'm sorry buddy but you have a mutated strain of Levodian Flu, I need you to be in the medbay for treatment and I can't take the chance of this spreading around the ship."

Jimmy really didn't want to go back to medbay but if it kept Leonard from being mad at him then he would go with as little fighting as possible. At least Leonard hadn't hurt him like the doctors at Riverside would. "Okay, Leonard." Jimmy sniffled.

"I really am sorry buddy, how about as soon as the two day contagion period is over you can come back up here and Ensign Chekov can take you down to sickbay for me while I talk to Captain Spock about something. I'll see you soon darlin'."

He lifted his arms up and let Chekov pick him up and carry him towards the turbo-lift.

"Jimmy." Jimmy looked up from the chess set Captain Spock and him had been playing shortly before the Vulcan had to leave for his shift at the sound of Leonard calling his name.

Leonard pulled him into his lap and reached down to tuck the blanket in around his shoulders, the cooler air of medbay hadn't been helping him fight off the chills his illness had left him with, and by the look on Leonard's face he already knew this wasn't going to be the happiest of conversations.

"You remember how I told you that today I was going to be going away for a little bit and that Mr. Scott would be staying with you to keep you company?" He waited until Jimmy nodded before continuing on, "I, well, I won't be coming back the same person I left."

Jimmy scrunched his face up in confusion at the words. He didn't understand what Leonard meant by that but hopefully if he listened Leonard would continue on and tell him. "What do you mean?"

"Well darlin' I'm not really as young as I am right now, you see, the last away mission The Enterprise had, uh, somethin' happened to me. The inhabitants of the planet we were on wanted me to participate in a ritual but it didn't really go as planned, well some of it did but in the end it didn't end up how the inhabitants really wanted it to. Let's just say that when I landed on the planet I was in my early thirties, thirty-one to be exact, and when I left I was 19. But I can't stay 19 and so Mr. Spock and I have been working on something to change me back to my normal age and we finally think that it's done and will work. That's where I'm going today."

Jimmy absorbed the information and mulled it over in his head for a second, _'Will he hate me like Frank does if he comes back as an adult? Not many adults really like me. They always say I think to much.'_

"But you'll still be you when you come back, right? You won't change just cause your body is older. Right?" Jimmy asked softly hoping that maybe Leonard wouldn't turn on him like all the other doctors.

"That's right darlin' I'll still be the same person that's sitting in front of you now, I'll just have a lot more wrinkles and gray hairs. But, um, that's – that's not all that happened down on that planet, Jimmy." He could see just how hesitant Leonard was to tell him the rest of the story. He thought back to how sometimes Chris wasn't able to tell him all the details about his StarFleet missions because it would make his 'superiors' upset and put some people in danger.

He guessed that might be why Leonard was hesitant to finish the tale. Finally Jimmy looked up and bit his lip, his eyebrows furrowing in deep concentration before he locked eyes with Leonard. "You don't have to tell me the rest, Leonard. I know sometimes adults have to keep secrets, even when they really wanna tell someone, because if they told that person it might mess something up or hurt the other persons feelings." He whispered softly leaning back to wrap his arms around Leonard's midsection and hug him tightly. "We'll still be able to play sometimes when you change back into an adult, right?"

"Yeah buddy, we'll still be able to play when ever I don't have to work."

Jimmy looked towards the entrance to the medbay as the man he had been introduced to yesterday as Mister Scott stampeded through the doors with a big bucket full of things that he hoped were meant to take his mind off of Leonard's absence. The Scotsman had a bunch of pieces of material that he said if Jimmy put together right would turn out to look like a miniature version of the ship they were on and if he finished it he could keep it.

He was so preoccupied with the new toy and trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together that he barely noticed Leonard press a kiss to his hair and slip out the doors.

Jimmy was sitting on the bio-bed reading an article about The USS Enterprise or as Scotty called her, "His Lovely Lady", he was reading all of the schematics and specifications when all of a sudden he felt like someone had reeled back and punched him in the face.

He let out a low whimper and clutched his face after he dropped the PADD he had in his hand, the skin around his eye was starting to swell and flare up with heat.

He cried out in pain as it felt like another blow landed on his stomach and a small line of pain streaked across his chin. Jimmy heard Scotty make a confused noise as he made his way back from the other side of the room where he had been flirting with one of the nurses.

"Laddie you alright over there?" He called out.

Jimmy opened his mouth to ask him to come over but all that came out was a startled wail as pain flared up along his whole back, it felt like someone hand slammed him down against something even though he knew he hadn't moved. The sounds of Scotty and one of the nurses scrambling to his bedside barely registered as the pain increased with each blow that was rained down on various parts of his body.

Scotty picked him up and started trying to bounce him to calm him down, only to stop when Nurse Chapel came over with a tri-corder and gasped at the bruises that littered his skin. "Wha' happen'd Jimmy, did ya hurt yerself?"

Jimmy shook his head frantically as the pain kept coursing through him. "It hurts!" He wailed as he struggled against Scotty's arms.

"Mr. Scott I can't find any reason for him to be getting these bruises but they keep appearing!" Chapel said frantically as she quickly pulled his medical scrub shirt over his head to try and see how extensive the bruises were.

"Go call tha' doctor!" Scotty yelled as more and more bruises and cuts showed up.

Chapel ran off to get her communicator.

"It's alright laddie! The doctor 'll be back soon an he'll getcha all fixed up in no time. You dinnae need ta' worry bout' tha'. See Nurse Chapel is going ta comm 'im right now!" Scotty said somewhat frantically.

"Scotty! What's going on." Jimmy heard Leonard say and as he looked over he could see that he looked different but he also knew that the older man rushing over to him was definitely Leonard.

Jimmy whimpered out Leonard's name and immediately Leonard grabbed him and placed him back on the bio-bed, glancing up at the vitals monitor before turning to grab something off the table besides the bed.

"What the hell happened?" Leonard yelled at Scotty.

"I dinnae know! One minute I was helpin' 'im read a Article 'bout the enterprise and the next 'e was wailin'. I called Nurse Chapel over an she could nae figure out any reason fer tha bruises jus' showin up on 'im!" Jimmy was barely able to keep up with the conversation between the two as it started to feel like someone had forced a hot piece of iron up his bottom.

He squealed in pain as the pain increased and he felt like something was ripping him apart from the inside out. Suddenly it felt like a hand was closing over his throat and pressing down, slowly but surely cutting off his access to air. He thrashed around on the bio-bed trying valiantly to get whatever was choking him off only for a sharp pain to shoot across his forehead. That pain made him struggle harder and he could faintly head Leonard yelling out orders before another round of pain lit up in the back of his head.

Then he knew nothing but darkness.

A few hours later, Jimmy couldn't help but continue clinging onto Leonard. He knew that he was being a nuisance and he was probably going to drive him away and make him mad at him but he couldn't help it. Every single time Leonard left him alone since he had woken up on this ship something ended up hurting him.

His body still ached from the bruises and he was constantly cold and shivering from the Flu that was ravaging his immune system but he didn't care.

Once he had woken up in medbay after that blow to the back of his head, a little voice in the back of his head had told him to stay with Leonard. But the voice didn't call him Leonard, the voice called him ' _Bones'_ and part of Jimmy was wondering if maybe that was why he felt the need to call his puppy bones?

When he had chosen the name something in the back of his mind had given him the feeling that the puppy looked familiar and it was only now that he could see the similarities between the toy and Leonard.

 _'Maybe I'm just seeing them as similar because I feel safe with them both?'_ He asked himself quietly as he felt Leonard shift him around in his lap.

He automatically cuddled further against Leonard's chest and clutched his puppy harder when Leonard kept moving.

"Jimmy Darlin'. Miss Uhura is going to take you for a few minutes while I go talk to Captain Spock and Mister Scott and Mister Chekov okay?"

Jimmy shook his head frantically as he clutched harder trying as hard as he could to ignore Uhura who was looking at him sadly from where she was standing at the entrance to Leonard's office.

"Jimmy, I have to go talk to them. You can stay in here and I promise I'll be right outside the door in medbay." Leonard stood up from his desk and walked over to the big window that peered out into the general area of medbay. "See? If you get worried you can always just look right out this window and see me okay?"

Jimmy just gave him a skeptical look and went back to sucking his thumb.

"Jimmy, Christopher Pike is waiting to talk to you while Leonard is outside. Do you want me to tell him that you don't want to talk to him?" Uhura asked softly as she stepped away from the door and closer to him.

Suddenly he was torn between wanting to stay with Leonard and wanting to see Chris for the first time in a while. ' _I guess it won't be so bad as long as I can still see Leonard, right? Nothing bad will happen if I can see him.'_ He thought.

Finally coming to a decision he reached his arms out to Uhura and let her cradle him much like Leonard always does. He watched solemnly as Leonard walked out the door of his office and Uhura turned to reach over and turn on the communications terminal that was in Leonard's office.

Soon enough he was focusing solely on talking to Chris, catching up on everything that had been happening to him these last few days. And if Chris cried a little when he heard what exactly he had been put through?

Well the three of them weren't going to say anything.

"Jimmy, buddy, are you ready to go ahead to bed? It's getting' pretty late and you need all the rest you can get, Kiddo." Jimmy heard Leonard ask quietly as he pressed a kiss to his head.

Jimmy leaned back and gave him an intense stare before pulling his thumb out of his mouth with a soft pop. "Are you gonna come with me?"

Leonard exhaled sharply at his question. "Jimmy you know I have to stay up and work."

Jimmy panicked slightly at the words. "Can't I just stay here with you? I'll be quiet! You won't even know I'm here!" He said quickly.

"Jimmy –"

"Please, Leonard? Every time you leave something bad happens!" Jimmy whimpered as he tucked his head into the crook of Leonard's neck. Leonard's sigh ruffled the hairs on the top of his head.

"Alright Jimmy, just try to relax and sleep." He said softly.

Jimmy laid his head back down and nuzzled Leonard's shoulder, slowly loosening his death grip on Leonard's shirt as he shifted to get comfortable against Leonard's chest. It took a minute or two but he was starting to lull off to sleep as the steady thumping of Leonard's heart beat soothed him.

He thought he heard a soft voice call out Leonard's name as he drifted off.

He couldn't keep his eyes open no matter hard he tried, he felt to hot no matter how he shifted and every so often he would feel sharp shooting pains running through his body before a pin prick against his neck would send him back into darkness.

 **CHAPTER 9**


	9. An Antidote or Just A Sweet Poison?

"You're sure that this is exactly the same serum that you gave me right? No one touched it or tweaked it?" Leonard asked skeptically as he shook the little vial that Spock had handed him upon coming into medbay that morning.

"Yes Doctor, no one has tampered with it, though I am unsure as to why you would believe someone would knowingly tamper with something for the Captain."

Leonard sighed and sat back against a spare bio-bed. "I know they wouldn't, I just don't want to take any chances with Jimmy's safety, god knows he's been through enough in the past couple of days. Poor kid won't even let me out of his sight he's still so scared from what happened while he had the Flu." He said looking back to where Uhura was playing with Jimmy, or rather she was attempting to play with him but he was keeping his focus on Leonard. "I'm just glad that we'll be able to give this to him later."

"Once I give him one last check over to make sure the Flu is totally out of his system I'll go ahead and sedate him so he doesn't have to deal with the pain of the change then I'll comm you guys to come down."

Spock gave him a nod. "I'm sure the senior crew will be gratified to hear that they will be able to see the Captain again soon."

"Yeah, I think we'll all be feelin a bit better once Jim is back and in shape."

"Spock, we've got to be on the bridge in about five minutes so we should head up. Len, Jimmy is asking for you, I think he's getting tired of playing." Uhura said as she walked up to them.

Leonard nodded to them as they walked out of medbay before turning around to look at Jimmy who was staring at him with a scrutinizing stare. "Hey buddy, you ready for your next check up?" He crooned softly as he picked up his tri-corder and made his way over to Jimmy.

"I guess." Jimmy said softly.

Leonard frowned at the dejected tone of voice. "What's wrong kiddo? Are you not feelin' well?"

Jimmy bit his lip and looked down to avoid Leonard's questioning gaze. "Leonard, can I ask you a question?"

Leonard glanced down at the tri-corder and sighed in relief at the results that showed the Levodian Flu had finally made its way completely out of Jimmy's system but then he frowned as Jimmy's inquiry registered in his mind. "Yeah darlin' you can ask me anything you want."

"Do you ever feel like something really bad is about to happen?"

He sat down on the edge of the bio-bed with another sigh, it seemed like he was doing that a lot lately. "Sometimes I do but it doesn't always mean that something is actually going to go wrong. Why? Did somebody say something to you that made you feel like something bad was going to happen?"

He watched as Jimmy shifted uncomfortably on the bio-bed and steadily avoided his gaze. "Um, not exactly? It's just ever since you told me that I would have to be seditized –."

"'Sedated' buddy."

"Ever since you said I was going to have to be sed–sedated later today I've had a bad feeling, in like the back of my head."

"Well I promise that nothing bad is going to happen while you're sedated, in fact I'm going to be with you the whole time to make sure nothing bad happens. But, if it makes you feel better I vividly remember telling you that once you were over the Flu you could go up and visit everyone on the bridge. So before I sedate you we are going to go up and see everyone."

Jimmy smiled at the thought of visiting his friends on the bridge. "Okay!" He said happily, though Leonard could almost see the cogs in his mind moving, no doubt realizing that this was a blatant attempt to make him feel better about going under for his 'surgery'.

"Hello Jimmy, Vhat are you doing up here?" Chekov asked as he and Jimmy stepped off the turbo-lift.

"Leonard said that I'm over the Flu and I could come visit before he sedates me." Jimmy said cheerfully as Leonard set him down on the floor and he took off towards Sulu and Chekov's stations to find out what they were doing.

Spock and Uhura were giving Leonard questioning looks as he made his way over to them. "We have a problem."

"Is Jimmy still not over his symptoms?" Spock inquired with a raised eyebrow. 

"No its not that he's officially out of the woods in that respect. Its just – he – he told me that he has a 'bad feeling' about being sedated."

"Doctor have you taken into account that perhaps it is his dislike of medbay and medical procedures that is giving him this 'bad feeling' as you call it?"

Leonard huffed. "Listen here hobgoblin I've been telling you for _days_ since you made this antidote that I have a bad feeling about it and now even Jimmy thinks something is going to go wrong. Are you seriously trying to tell me that it's just a coincidence that we both feel the same way?"

"Actually, on the contrary perhaps it is the fact that you feel this way that is causing him to question the safety of the procedure?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Leonard said angrily.

"I just mean to state that perhaps Jimmy has seen how apprehensive you have been about this seeing as he has been in your constant care for the past two days and has accidentally mistaken your apprehension as his own."

"Leonard, Spock does have a point. This is probably just Jimmy picking up on the fact that you are worried, I mean we've all seen it he's incredibly perceptive for a five year old kid. Besides the antidote worked just fine on you and the both of you had the exact same things done to you that made you this way." Uhura said gently. "The more you worry and put this off the more worried Jimmy is gonna get. It's better for everyone to just do this now rather than to keep waiting and putting it off for later."

Leonard exhaled slowly before looking over at Jimmy, who was busy asking Chekov questions about the quadrant they were making their way through. "Alright, I'm gonna take him down to engineering so he can see Scotty then We'll head back down to medbay and get him ready. Are any of you coming down to be there for this or are you waiting until he wakes up once he's changed back?"

"Once who changes back?" Jimmy asked, tugging on the end of Leonard's shirt to get him to lift him back up into his arms.

"One of my patients buddy, he got hurt a little while ago and I'm working to get him back and fully healthy again." Leonard said hesitantly as he leaned over to pick Jimmy up, "You ready to go down to engineering and see Scotty?"

Jimmy nodded and leaned his head against Leonard's shoulder. "Bye Mr. Spock, Bye Miss Uhura."

"Bye Jimmy. Be good for Leonard okay? Spock and I will be down to see you once you wake up."

"Goodbye Jimmy."

Leonard turned to face Jimmy as he finished setting up all the monitoring equipment that he had moved into the private room he had Jimmy in. "You ready to go under buddy?" He asked as he helped Jimmy up onto the bio-bed and made sure 'Bones' was up there with him.

"Yeah. How come there's no nurses in here with us, Leonard? Aren't they usually supposed to help doctors do surgeries?" Jimmy asked as he petted the soft brown fur of his puppies head.

"Usually they would darlin' but this is a real simple procedure so I can do it all on my own. Now you're gonna feel a little pinch but then after a few seconds you'll be out like a light, okay?" Leonard said with a smile as he ruffled Jimmy's hair, he was actually gonna miss the kid. "I'll be right here when you wake up so don't worry."

He grabbed a hypo full of the sedative he had set aside and took a deep breath, mentally trying to prepare himself for what he was about to do. He administered the hypo as gently as he could and sat down in the chair to take Jimmy's hand and wait for him to fall asleep, he kept up a steady stream of soothing words until the monitors told him for sure that Jimmy was fast asleep and wouldn't be waking up anytime soon.

Leonard moved to get the antidote out of its case and silently uncorked the vial it was held in. ' _I probably should have had him drink this before I knocked him out.'_ He thought to himself as he sat Jimmy up a bit and slowly started to pour the liquid down his throat, taking care to make sure that Jimmy was swallowing it and that it didn't accidentally choke the unconscious kid.

 _'Now it's just a waiting game. But it worked within a minute or two of taking it for me, so it probably won't take much longer to work for him.'_

He sat back in the chair and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Once nearly twenty minutes had gone by he finally decided that for some reason the antidote wasn't working. Quickly he walked out of the private room and back into the main area of the medbay, intent on getting his communicator and calling Spock to figure out why the hell his antidote had worked on him but wasn't doing anything to Jimmy.

"McCoy to Bridge."

"This is Spock, has the procedure been completed?"

"No. That's what I'm calling you about I thought you said no one did anything to the antidote you gave me for Jim?"

"Doctor, as I said before no one has tampered with the serum. It is in fact the same exact one I gave to you as I made them both at the same time."

"Well someone must have changed something Spock! Cause the damn thing isn't working, it only took a minute or two before I was starting to change back and I gave it to him twenty minutes ago and nothing has happened at all!" He yelled angrily into the communicator.

"Doctor, please cease your emotional outbursts, I am transferring control of the ship to Lieutenant Sulu and will be making my way down to medbay shortly. Spock out."

Leonard groaned irritably and shoved his communicator into the pocket of his slacks, he stomped back into the private room where Jimmy was and plopped down into the chair. He studied Jimmy's body intently for any signs of change while he waited for Spock to make his slow ass way down to medbay.

Five minutes later he was pacing back and forth across the front of Jimmy's bed as he waited impatiently for Spock to get there, Jimmy hadn't even changed one bit and Leonard was seriously worried that perhaps his earlier worry of Jimmy's condition being permanent because of how far he had been regressed was actually coming true.

At the very least he was glad he had chosen a sedative that would last at least a few hours instead of one that would wear off faster.

"Doctor."

Leonard jerked around at the sound of Spock calling his name. "He hasn't changed at all Spock! Not even a little bit! I told you something was going to go wrong but did you listen to me? No! Because I'm just an over emotional doct –"

"Doctor McCoy we have no reason to believe anything has gone wrong. It might simply be that I underestimated the amount of antidote he would need as you only needed to be aged 12 year where as he needs to be aged 21 years."

"Why didn't you think of that befo– "

"Le – Leonard?" A soft voice slurred.

Leonard whirled around and came face to face with a very pale looking Jimmy. "Hey darlin', you shouldn't be awake yet, I'm not done."

"M–my head hur–hurts." Jimmy slurred again. "I – I don't fe – feel so good."

Leonard quickly glanced at the monitors above Jimmy's bed and when those didn't seem to give him the answers he wanted he turned and plucked his tri-corder off of the bedside table. "It's probably just a side effect of you coming off the sedatives to soon, sweetheart. Just give me a second to figure out why you woke up so soon and then we'll find a way to put you back under." He said soothingly as he ran his free hand through Jimmy's hair.

He frowned to himself as he felt just how much sweat had collected in Jimmy's hair and on his forehead. "Are you hot buddy? Do you want me to take off some of the blankets?" 

Jimmy squirmed against the bed as he started whimpering. "It – It really hurts, Len – Leonard!" He hiccuped.

"Jimmy, are you able to tell us what kind of pain you are in?" Spock inquired as he moved to the head of the bed.

Jimmy only answered him with a shaky exhale of breath. "Is it a shooting pain or a throbbing pain? Is it centered on one part of your head or all over –"

"Spock! Something's wrong. His vitals and brain activity are all over the place."

"Yes I am aware, doctor. I am currently attempting to ascertain the reason for the abnormalities in his vital signs." Jimmy's face had gone shockingly white as he whined and attempted to sit up, but his arms were wracked with tremors and unable to completely support him.

Leonard reached over, grabbing an emesis basin and thrusting it under Jimmy's chin just in time for him to vomit up saliva and stringy bile as he gagged. Leonard rubbed his back as Jimmy' throat convulsed, trying to bring up the contents of an already empty stomach.

"It's okay, it's okay."

Jimmy swayed as a cold sweat broke out across his forehead, his breath was coming in harsh pants as he tried to move, his eyes were glazed and unfocused as they bounced around the room. "Leonard it _hurts_."

"I know baby boy, does anything else hurt or is it just your head?" Leonard asked softly, trying to get Jimmy to focus on him.

"He – He said you always make it stop hurting. Why hasn't it stopped hurting?"

Leonard and Spock exchanged a startled look over Jimmy's head at the words. "Who said it would stop hurting Jimmy?" Spock asked quietly.

"I – I don't k–know, it feels like a dream b–but I'm not dreaming, he keeps calling you _bones_ and Mister Spock is – is hurting me and it's to hot oh god it's so hot and Mister Sulu is _falling_ and I can't stop him, please make it stop Leonard! It hurts! Please, MAKE IT STOP!" Jimmy wailed as he curled in on himself bringing his hands up to protectively shield his head.

"Spock stay with him, I'm going to get something to put him back to sleep."

"Doctor, I do not think it is an appropriate course of action to sedate him again so soon."

Leonard paused at the door on his way to go get another hypo. "Spock his brain is sending out painful stimuli to the rest of his body and his brain waves are off the chart if we don't calm him down or find someway to lessen the activity in his brain he'll start seizing and who knows what damage that will bring!"

"We do not have enough information with which to make the conclusion that sedating him again will not in fact cause the same amount or possibly even more damage."

"Spock the last time I checked I'm the one with a medical degree and I say we need to sedate him again–" Leonard swore as Jimmy's eyes rolled back into his head and his body started convulsing. "Stay here with him! Make sure he's turned on his side so he doesn't aspirate on his vomit!" Leonard yelled as he ran out the door.

He returned about half a minute later with multiple hypo's and Nurse Chapel running in behind him. Immediately Chapel forced Spock out of the room, taking his place making sure Jimmy didn't choke on the foamy substance that was leaking out of his mouth and running down his chin. "I'm giving him Carbamazepine, that should stop the seizure but we'll have to wait a few minutes before we can introduce the Temazepam into his system."

"The seizure is subsiding but the brain activity has barely decreased. What happened?" Christine asked as she helped roll Jimmy onto his back and cleaned up his face. She glanced at the monitors and took in the low grade fever that was showing up on the monitors. "Should I get an antipyretic hypo? He's got a 101.9 degree fever."

Leonard pressed another hypo into Jimmy's neck before turning to address her. "I was giving him the antidote that Spock created, the one that turned me back to my normal age, but it only took it about a minute or two to work on me and when I gave it to him twenty minutes passed without anything changing. So I called Spock down to figure out what the hell went wrong and for some reason that I haven't figured out yet Jimmy woke up long before the sedative I gave him should have worn off."

"Why did you give him a sedative?"

"Because the transformation fucking hurts Christine and he's already been through enough pain." Leonard said. "Anyway he woke up and said his head was hurting and at first I thought it was just a side effect of the sedative not working, but then he told me that 'He said you always make it stop hurting' when Spock asked who he was talking about he just started talking about how Spock was hurting him and he was hot and Sulu was falling. As he was talking the monitors that I had for his brain activity started lighting up, almost like he was remembering something. Then he started having the seizure."

Chapel bit her lip and gave his a questioning gaze. "Is it possible he was remembering something? Maybe the antidote fixed his mental age but not his physical one?"

"That's what I thought too at first but he still seemed like a confused little kid, not like an adult."

"But if he was still under the influence of the sedatives and was confused it's entirely possible that his mental age had changed back and it was just to much for his younger body to take." Christine argued. "The sheer volume of memories could have overloaded his brain and caused the seizure, right? Maybe once he wakes up he'll be the Captain again?"

"Christine if that happens then how the hell are we going to get his _body_ back to its normal age? If the antidote is only changing his mind and not his body, are we just supposed to let him live the next twenty years as a man stuck in a little kids body?" Leonard asked exasperatedly.

It was twenty minutes later, after Christine and him had finally gotten Jimmy stable again and Spock left to go to the science labs and figure out what went wrong with the antidote, Leonard was alternating between pacing back and forth and sitting beside Jimmy's when he noticed that Jimmy looked a tiny bit bigger.

It was barely any change in the general size of the toddler and for all Leonard knew it was completely possible that his mind was imagining it in the hope that Jim was coming back but he thought he saw a slight change.

' _Maybe the antidote brought His memory back before it started on his physical body? I never did see his initial change when he first ate the fruit, maybe he lost his memories first and it's returning to him in the same order? I didn't lose my memories so that might be why the change to my body was immediate'_ Leonard thought hopefully as he watched Jimmy with a sharp focus.

And that sharp focus allowed him to see it, the small changes, in the shape of his face, the length of his hair, the size of his body. It was subtle and if Leonard hadn't been watching for it he would probably have never noticed. He watched for nearly an hour but even then the changes were way to small and happening way to slowly for it to be him changing back into an adult. In fact it looked like he hadn't even aged a year, it might have only been a few months at the most.

' _Spock must be right. He needs a hell of a lot more of the antidote if the dose I had only made him change this much. But at least it means we know it works and when Jim wakes up we can tell him that he'll have his actual body back soon.'_ He thought to himself as he reached out and grasped Jim's hand in his.

He was looking forward to having Jim back. He liked taking care of Jimmy but he wanted his lover, his best friend back.

All of a sudden a bit of movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye at the same time the little hand in his clenched. "Jim?" He called out softly, he didn't want to wake him if he wasn't ready to wake up.

The hand clenched in his again at the sound of his voice and he smiled as he leaned forward. "Jim, are you wakin' up?"

A groan answered him as electric blue eyes peeked out at his from barely opened eyelids. "That's it, Darlin' open those pretty blue eyes of yours for me."

Those eyes focused on his and for a second he could see a haze of confusion covering them before they popped wide open and suddenly Jim was scrambling up the bed and trying frantically to put distance between himself and Leonard.

Leonard frowned and his brow furrowed in confusion at the reaction. "Jim? You okay?"

"W–who are you? W–Whe–Where am I?" Jim stuttered out as his eyes bounced around the room, trying to find something that might give him a clue as to where he was.

"Jimmy. You don't remember me?" He asked quietly, it was suddenly hard to talk past the lump in his throat. Not only had he not got his Jim back but now he had lost Jimmy as well.

"N–no, I–I–I've never m–met you before." He stammered out quietly. "W–What time is it? I need t–to get back before Frank f–finds out I left. He'll get real mad." He was trying to get out the bed but the sedatives still in his bloodstream made his body heavy and his movements sluggish.

Leonard quickly stood up and grabbed a hold of his arm to steady him before he fell off the edge of the bed in his haste to leave. "Darlin', You don't need to worry about Frank any more. He can't hurt ya anymore."

Jim looked at him with panic in his eyes. "Who told you that?! Oh god, he's gonna kill me. He's gonna kill me when he finds out. I n–need to leave." He whimpered as he renewed his struggle against Leonard's grip.

"It's okay, sugar, no one is gonna hurt ya here. I promise ya that." Leonard said sincerely.

"Leonard?" Jim looked at him again, this time with confusion and recognition warring in his eyes. "Y–you helped me before? A–and your f–friends gave me gifts..." He trailed off.

The monitors on the bio-bed started beeping as his temperature rose slightly and the monitors watching his brain activity beeped frantically.

Suddenly his face fell and tears welled up in his eyes as he turned them back onto Leonard. "L – Leonard I'm _scared._ " He whimpered.

Jimmy was back at least. And if he couldn't have his Jim, well, Jimmy was better than nothing.


	10. A Cure A Day Makes The Doctors Stay

"Len?"

"What, Uhura?"

"I was just coming to see how Jimmy was doing. I told Spock that I was going to come here after my shift and see if there were any changes since you last checked in with the bridge during alpha shift."

Leonard glanced down at the blanket swaddled body that was laying on top of his chest. "He's not doing any better. I can barely keep him awake anymore and I'm not sure if it's a side effect of the antidote or if the constant overload of brain activity that was going on for those six hours just wore him out completely."

Uhura pulled one of the chairs up to the side of the bed and sat down in it. "Is he still getting confused or is that getting any better."

"Depends on what your definition of better is. The few times he has been awake for more than a few minutes he seems to be retaining the memory of who I am and the fact that I've been helping him but he's still gettin' confused about where he is and He was having near constant panic attacks when he's awake." Leonard exhaled slowly. "I'm not sure if he's actually regaining his memories because his mind is regaining its actual age or if they are coming back to him because he wasn't supposed to lose them in the first place or what the hell is happening."

"Hell, Uhura, I still don't even know what the hell went wrong with the antidote. It worked for me. It should have damn well worked for him."

Uhura bit her lip and looked towards the ground, an uncharacteristic look of uncertainty on her face. "Spock hasn't been able to find anything that could even begin to explain why he reacted this way to the antidote. You're sure that he didn't have an allergic reaction to it?"

"Yeah I'm sure. I scanned him at the time of giving it to him and nothing on the tri-corder indicated that it was an allergic reaction and I made sure none of the chemicals or medications he was allergic to were used in making the antidote. Besides the antidote is still showing up in his system even though It has been hours since I gave it to him and it worked its way out of my system almost immediately after the change took place, by time I got to medbay that day it was already gone out of my bloodstream."

She groaned softly and put her head in her hands. "He is still changing though right? The transformation is still ongoing."

"That's the thing, it stops and waits anywhere from ten minutes to an hour before it kicks in again. And its not necessarily making him older either, he went from being five to maybe five and three quarters back down to about four and then back up to five. It doesn't make sense, the antidote, even if it were tampered with or even if he was having an allergic reaction to it, it shouldn't be aging _and_ deaging him." Leonard said exasperatedly as he waved his free hand, that wasn't currently cradling Jimmy to his chest, around in irritation.

"There's gotta be something we missed? May–Maybe in the days between giving you the antidote and giving it to Jimmy it went bad? I mean if it wasn't stored at the right temperature or if it got cross contaminated with something else in the labs?" She asked him.

Leonard shook his head. "Spock had a little bit of trace liquid left in the vial I gave Jimmy. He said, the last time I talked to him, that it wasn't contaminated and that it still had the exact same chemical properties that it did when he gave the original dosage to me."

"But that doesn't make sense!" Uhura yelled. "If it's exactly the same then it should work exactly the same. There has to be some logical explanation for why it didn't work. Or at the very least it should have some logical reason for why it is deaging and aging him in turns."

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Better watch out there Uhura, if you keep spouting off the word logical you might just turn into the green blooded hobgoblin yourself." He said softly, trying to lighten the mood.

She chuckled lightly and gave him a half hearted smile. "You keep cuddling up to Jimmy and you might just stop being a grumpy old man."

"I don't think I'll ever stop being grumpy. It's to good a look on me."

Leonard looked down at his chest as Jim started to squirm against him. "You alright there darlin'?"

"Leonard I'm hungry." Jimmy slurred softly, his head barely lifting up off Leonard's chest as he tried to talk, though it was obvious that he didn't have the energy to force his body to move much.

"Yeah? I bet you are, sugar. You haven't eaten anything since yesterday mornin and we're are coming up on dinner time."

Uhura stood up from her chair. "Why don't I go get us something from the mess and we can all eat together? Would you like that Jimmy?" She asked quietly, unsure as to whether Jimmy was lucid and coherent enough to remember exactly who she was.

"Actually I think it might do Jimmy some good to get out of medbay for a bit. How about we all go sit down in the mess and get something for dinner. Maybe a change in environment and company might help you perk up a bit, huh, sweetheart." Leonard crooned softly as he shifted Jimmy around so that he would be able to keep a solid hold on him while he moved to get up off the bio-bed. He turned to face Uhura as he settled Jimmy's head against his shoulder and motioned her towards the doors to medbay. "Lead the way Uhura."

They had chosen a fairly secluded set of seats in the back of the mess hall, so that Jimmy wasn't bombarded by the sights and sounds of the bustling crew moving in and out of the mess hall. Uhura came back to their table carrying three sets of food and she sat a bowl of plain oatmeal in front of Leonard and Jimmy along with the food Leonard had asked her to get for him.

"So has he not been eating well?" She asked quietly as she looked at Jimmy, who was propped up against Leonard's shoulder looking like he was barely able to keep his eyes open let alone eat a full bowl of oatmeal.

"I've been trying to get him to eat but he usually falls back asleep before I manage to get anything anywhere near him. Even if I get it out of the replicators it's still to slow. This is honestly the longest he has been awake since I gave him the antidote." Leonard said picking up a spoon full of oatmeal and waiting for Jimmy to try and take a bite. It was almost like watching a baby try to eat off of a spoon but the fact that it was a five year old and she knew the reason for why he was unable to be coordinated enough to even get a spoon in his mouth was heartbreaking.

"Doctor! I see you have zhe captain with you iz he feeling better?" Chekov asked quietly as he plopped down with his tray next to Uhura.

"He is awake at least. I don't know if you would say that he feels better." He said, still trying to get Jimmy to take another bite of his oatmeal. "Jimmy? You wanna say hi to Mr. Chekov?"

Jimmy turned his head slightly and let out a sleepy moan that may or may not have been some form of greeting. But even that was enough to make Chekov's face light up a bit. "How have you been Jimmy? Ve have missed you on zhe bridge."

"I'm tired." He mumbled against Leonard's collarbone

"I know, sugar. How about you eat another spoonful or two of your oatmeal and then you can go ahead back to sleep? Does that sound fair?"

Jimmy nodded and sluggishly accepted the food into his mouth and started chewing. Uhura and Chekov could see that he practically fell asleep while chewing multiple times. "Len, maybe you should go take him back to medbay? He looks like he could use the quiet to sleep better." Uhura said sympathetically, just looking at Jimmy was making her want to fall asleep as well.

"It doesn't really matter, he'll fall asleep regardless of where he is. The background noise actually might make him subconsciously feel a bit better." Leonard admitted as he moved Jim from resting against his shoulder and instead settled him in his lap so he could eat.

"Doctor? If I may have a moment of your time." Spock asked as he stepped through the doors of medbay.

Leonard looked up from where he was going over patient charts with Jimmy lying next to him in the bio-bed he was on. "Sure, what's up Spock." He said distractedly as he moved Jimmy to keep him from falling off the bed.

"I believe I may have spotted a difference in the way we administered the antidote between yourself and Jimmy, that could have possibly caused the adverse reaction to become apparent."

Leonard immediately dropped the PADD he had been working on and gave Spock his full attention. "What? What did you find, I thought we didn't do anything different?" He asked quickly.

"I had previously overlooked this bit of information as I had not realized it's importance and for that fault I take full responsibility – "

"Come on Hobgoblin, out with it! Just tell me what we did wrong so that we can go ahead and fix it!" Leonard huffed angrily, he couldn't believe that after all they had been through the last day or two, Spock was still trying to beat around the damn bush.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I am attempting to tell you what went wrong. After I ran multiple test on the residual liquid in the vial I have sufficiently ruled out the fact that someone might have tampered with the antidote or that something was different chemically about the liquid."

Leonard looked at him exasperatedly. "Get on with it you pointy eared prick!"

"Len – Leonard?" Jimmy called confusedly, having been jostled around when Leonard was violently motioning at Spock to get on with what he was saying.

"I'm sorry baby boy, go back to sleep, Mr. Spock and I were just having a conversation." He said soothingly as he rubbed Jimmy's back and moved him slightly farther away form his body.

Jimmy shifted and stared at Spock, who in turn looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Mr. Spock?" He called out questioningly.

"Yes Jimmy?"

"I'm sorry for throwing up on you the other day when you were trying to take my blood." He said miserably.

"It is quite alright Jimmy, you were still partially sedated at the time and had no proper knowledge of my presence." Spock said with a slight nod before turning back to Leonard as Jimmy started to drift off again. "As I was saying, after reviewing the information that we have gathered I believe the reason for the adverse reaction is not in fact with the antidote but instead with how we administered it to Jimmy."

Leonard looked at him with furrowed brows. "What do you mean with how we administered it, I made sure everything was exactly the same Spock! He drank it just like I did."

"Correct, he did indeed drink it as you did however, You did not have a sedative introduced into your bloodstream shortly before administering the antidote."

Leonard glanced down as he took in the information. "So I did this? By giving him a sedative to keep him from feeling the pain I caused this?" He asked himself softly, looking at Jimmy with something akin to horror in his eyes.

"If it is any consolation, Doctor. There is no possible way you could have foresaw that the sedative would cause such an adverse reaction."

Suddenly Leonard squinted his eyes in concentration. "But I took a sedative when I originally ate the purity fruit back on Delvia? Why didn't it cause me to have an adverse reaction? Why did it only do it to Jimmy?"

"I asked myself that same question doctor, but I have found a different possible theory that may explain why the reaction differed between the two of you."

Leonard nodded at him to go on when he paused. "Okay, lay it on me. What are your theories Spock?"

"Firstly, the reaction could be attributed to the fact that when on the planet of Delvia, you did not in fact take a sedative. You in fact took a painkiller, as did Jim during the initial transformation, the chemical reaction between the Delvian purity fruit and the painkiller is remarkably different from the reaction that occurs when you mix the antidote with the particular sedative that you had given." Spock stated.

"So what you're saying is that if we give him the antidote and either give him a painkiller or don't give him any medication at all it should work and change him back to normal?" Leonard asked him hopefully, running his hand through Jimmy's hair.

Jimmy stirred slightly at the feeling of a hand in his hair before drifting off back to sleep. "Besides I don't really think he needs a sedative anymore, he's been so lethargic that he might just sleep through the whole thing on his own without any help from the medications."

Spock nodded. "It would be best to forgo any medications as I have not completely tested how the antidote with react to the line of painkillers you would be able to give to Jimmy. The transformation may cause him physical pain but withdrawing the medication from the equation should eliminate all possibilities of another failure." Spock said, with something that Leonard could have sworn was confidence in his voice, even though Vulcan's _didn't feel confidence._

"How soon will you be able to cook up more of the antidote?"

"Given that I have now been relieved of my command of the ship for this shift I should be able to fully focus on creating the antidote, I should have it ready to be administered in approximately 4.65 hours."

Leonard sighed in relief. "I'll go ahead and start getting him ready for the transformation then." He said softly.

"Alright Jimmy, I'm gonna go see if Mr. Spock has that medicine that I need to give you. You remember how I told that I need to give you a new medication to help make you feel better?"

Jimmy nodded slowly. "The stuff Mr. Spock is gonna give me will help me?" He asked softly.

"Yeah, Jimmy it'll help you. But I need you to listen to me very very carefully." He waited for Jimmy to nod before continuing on. "This medication, it is going to hurt you a bit okay? I don't want you to be scared but I want you to know beforehand so you know it's coming."

Jimmy's attention strayed over to the over side of medbay where Spock had walked in carrying a tray with several different vials of liquid. Leonard got up and walked over to him, talking to him as he sat the tray down and starting mixing the liquid, Jimmy watched as Leonard stood and asked questions, motioning to the vial of red liquid before finally nodding and accepting the vial from Spock.

Then he made his way back to Jimmy. "Alright buddy, you ready?" 

"Is Mr. Spock going to stay here?" Jimmy asked quietly as he clutched Bones to his chest and hid his face in the fur on the top of Bones' head.

Leonard blinked and looked back at Spock. "Do you want him to stay, sugar?"

Jimmy nodded quickly. "Yeah I want him here to. I–I mean if he wants to a – and he doesn't have to work." He amended.

Spock stepped forward to stand at the end of the bed. " As I do not have any duties to attend for the next 8.6 hours I would be more than willing to oversee this procedure."

Jimmy smiled up at him sleepily. "Thank you Mr. Spock. And thank you for staying with me to Leonard."

"Believe me Darlin' a whole army of Klingon's couldn't keep me from stayin' here with ya." He ruffled Jimmy's hair affectionately before his face turned serious. "Now, You have to drink this all in one go, okay? It is gonna taste nasty but you have to drink it."

Jimmy nodded and accepted the vial, frowning down at it until Leonard put a hand on his back and gave him an encouraging rub. Exhaling he closed his eyes, threw his head back and gulped down the antidote immediately gagging as the flavor finally hit his tongue once it got down his throat.

Leonard chuckled at the reaction and moved to sit on the edge of the bed while Spock moved to sit down in the chair next to the bed.

Two minutes later Jimmy was squirming on the bed, a thin sheen of sweat was building up on his skin and the monitors on the bio-bed were showing obvious signs of pain. Leonard reached over and gently started rubbing Jimmy's back, knowing it wouldn't really help the pain but hoping it would keep Jimmy calm and let him know that he wasn't alone.

A a gasp and a whimper escaped Jimmy's throat and Leonard moved closer to him, pulling him over to rest against his side and pressed a kiss to his head. "It's okay Jimmy, it'll be over soon, I know it hurts but you'll feel better. Afterwards."

"Jimmy, the pain should only last approximately 4.3 minutes before stopping almost instantaneously." Spock said.

Just like before, the change in Jimmy's features was much slower than it had been in Leonard's but it was in fact faster than it had been when Leonard had administered the antidote the first time.

His features were changing but just ans suddenly as it started only three minutes after he was given the antidote, Jimmy's transformation stopped. He was obviously older but not by much. If Leonard had to hazard a guess he would say that he was at the tail end of five years old, maybe, maybe he was early six years old but he definitely wasn't the 26 year old Jim they had been expecting.

Leonard frowned down at Jimmy before glancing back up at Spock astonished. "Why didn't it work? _Again?"_ Leonard hissed at Spock, who quite honestly was also looking somewhat astonished.

"What do you mean Leonard? I feel better. Isn't that what it was supposed to do?" Jimmy asked confused as he burrowed close to Leonard's side.

"Yeah it was buddy but according to the monitors I have on you it didn't work fully, and it also didn't work exactly like Mr. Spock and I intended it to." Leonard said reassuringly, trying desperately not to let Jimmy be clued in on the fact that he was internally panicking.

"So we'll have to do it again?"

"We might, sugar. I'm not completely sure yet. Let's get you cleaned up, cause you sweated an awful lot during the procedure. Then once you're in bed I'm gonna talk to Mr. Spock about what our next step is. Actually why don't you go ahead and get ready to get a shower and I'll be right in with ya." He said distractedly as he pointed towards the bathroom that was attached to Jimmy's private sickbay room.

Jimmy shuffled towards the end of the bed. He wobbled slightly as he went to go stand but he caught his balance fairly quickly and toddled into the adjoining bathroom, glad that he wasn't dead tired and struggling to keep his eyes open for once. "Okay, Leonard." He said softly.

"Doctor, I am not completely sure what went wrong but I believe it might have been a problem that we talked about being a possibility earlier."

"And what problem is that Spock?" Leonard huffed as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

Spock stood up as well. "Earlier we believed that Jimmy might need a significantly higher dose than the one you received as he has much more growing to do since he lost more of his actual formative years where as the changes in the years your lost were minimal. I believe that if I synthesize more of the antidote and we have him take another, higher dose it should put him back to his normal age." Spock stated. "It is evident that the antidote did in fact work as intended this time around, as Jimmy did in fact age up and he did not suffer any adverse effects, even though he didn't age up nearly as much."

Leoanrd was about to retort to that comment but a sharp gasp coming from the bathroom drew his attention away from the Vulcan in front of him.

"L – Leonard!" Jimmy called out with fear and pain in his voice.


	11. Around and Around We Go

"L – Leonard!" Jimmy called out with fear and pain in his voice.

"Jimmy?" Leonard quickly made his way into the bathroom worry making itself known in the back of his mind. "What's wrong Darlin'?" He asked softly, Jimmy was facing away from him, halfway towards the mirror that was on the other side of the bathroom.

A whimper escaped the six year old's throat and he watched from behind as Jimmy brought his hands up to his face and felt around. "Sugar, What's going on? What's wrong?" He asked again, this time more urgently.

"I – I c – can't –"

"You can't want, Honey?" Jimmy was hyperventilating as he ran his hands over his face. "Sugar, you gotta tell me what's wrong or else I can't help you." Leonard said soothingly, approaching the panicking child slowly, not wanting to make him even more scared.

Jimmy finally turned around to look at him and what he saw nearly made his heart stop and his blood freeze in his veins.

Jimmy's eyes were covered by a cloudy almost milky white film.

"I – I can't s – see!" Jimmy sobbed.

Leonard was frozen in shock by both the look of his eyes and the admission. "It's alright Jimmy, you're okay." He crooned, finally managing to break out of his stupor as he walked over and picked Jimmy up, making sure to hold him firmly while he strode back out to the main room.

He ignored the flurry of thoughts that came racing through his mind as the realization finally settled into his brain, for a minute or two he contemplated the validity of the antidote possibly causing the blindness before he decided to just sit Jimmy down and scan him. Hopefully his trusty tri-corder would show him what the hell was going on.

He rubbed a reassuring hand up and down Jimmy's back, setting him down on the bed and turning to get his tri-corder off the side table. "It's okay, Jimmy, just give me a second to figure out what's wrong and then I'll fix it as soon as I can."

"I need you to try and take some deep breaths. C'mon, in and out, in and out. That's it baby boy, calm down."

"Doctor what is going on?" Spock asked as he walked back in the room. If Leonard didn't know better he'd think that the slope of his eyebrows was almost concerned.

"I'm not sure yet Spock, he –"

"I can't see." Jimmy hiccuped from the bed, half curled in on himself as he rubbed his tiny fists over his eyes.

Spock look at him with a raised eyebrow before striding over to the bed and gingerly lifting Jimmy's chin up to look at his eyes. "Is it possible that the medication we gave him has caused this ailment doctor?"

"Like I said, I don't know yet. It could be a direct side effect of the medicine, it could be an allergic reaction to the medicine or it could be something else altogether." Leonard said irritably, the tri-corder was showing the fact that he was blinded and it was showing that there was slight damage and more than slight swelling in Jimmy's optical nerves but it wasn't giving him any reason for the swelling or the damage. "Jimmy did you hit your head while you were in the bathroom."

Spock looked at him with a hint of a frown on his face. "Doctor, he was only out of sight for approximately 3.26 minutes, that is hardly enough time for him to sustain a major head injury that could result in blindness."

Jimmy sniffled. "I–I didn't h–hit my head. I–I was about to t–take m–my shirt off to get in t–the shower and all of a–a sudden it f–felt like someone h–hit me on the back of m–my head. I–It really hurt an–and then everything star–started looking fuzzy. Now I can't see!" He stuttered out around shaky breaths. He looked in a direction that could have vaguely been an attempt to look at Leonard and held his arms up in the universal kid sign for 'pick me up' as his breathing went from shaky back to hyperventilating almost instantly.

Leonard tossed his tri-corder on the bed and grabbed Jimmy under his arms, swinging him up and pressing his head into the crook of his neck right as Jimmy started sobbing again. "It's okay, baby, it's okay." Leonard murmured quietly, rocking back and forth as he sent an irritated look towards Spock.

"My head hurts!" Jimmy whimpered into the side of Leonard's neck.

"I know sweetheart, I'm working on figuring out what's wrong, I promise."

"Spock I need you to go and get Nurse Chapel, tell her to bring me the PADD in my office, the one that has all of my patient files on it!" He said urgently trying to get Jimmy to calm down and stop crying.

Spock nodded and walked out the door, he could distantly hear him asking Chapel to go get him the PADD he had requested. Jimmy however had not stopped crying against his neck, in fact if anything he had started crying harder as his little body trembled against Leonard's chest.

"It's alright Jimmy, you're okay."

"It hurts!"

"I know, I know, hold on sweetheart, let me see if I have anything I can give you for the pain." Leonard moved back towards the bed and grabbed his tri-corder with one hand, using the other to cradle Jimmy's bottom and keep him steady.

He set the tri-corder up to scans for injuries and to see if there was any of the antidote still left in his system. He could just give Jimmy a painkiller and know for sure that it wouldn't interfere with the antidote if it was in fact still in his system but he honestly wanted to go ahead and give him a sedative. It was traumatizing enough for an adult to suddenly go blind, he couldn't even imagine what kind of terror Jimmy must be feeling right now. If getting sedated kept him from getting hurt worse then that was what Leonard wanted to do.

The tri-corder in his hand beeped to signal that it was done and Leonard sighed in relief when he saw that the antidote had left Jimmy's system, though those results didn't stop his eyes from nearly bulging out of his head when he read the damage report.

 _'How in the hell does he have internal bleeding? It wasn't there last time I checked.'_ Leonard thought frantically.

"Jimmy I'm gonna put you down on the bed, okay? I've gotta check your stomach, sugar." Without waiting for a reply he set Jimmy down on his back and lifted the medical scrub shift to reveal a set of ugly dark bruises settled on his lower stomach. A quick check of his back showed a pattern of scars that definitely hadn't been there before as well as a boot tread shaped bruise, much like the ones he had found all over Jimmy the first few times Frank's abuse had made itself known on the child's body.

"I'm gonna be right back, sugar I've gotta go see what is taking Mister Spock so long and grab a few things, okay?"

Jimmy tried to sit up and latch onto his arms. "N–no! Don't leave me please!"

Leonard had to blink back tears at the hysteria in Jimmy's voice, for a split second he was actually kind of glad that Jimmy couldn't see his face, the panic and tears that he knew were abundantly clear on his face most likely would have upset Jimmy even more.

"Jimmy, you're really hurt. I need to go get some things to help you and I need to go get them now. I can't wait for Nurse Chapel and Mister Spock."

Jimmy hiccuped and whimpered before giving a small nod, it may have been sent towards the wrong side of the room but Leonard was willing to take it as a nod towards him.

He ran out of the room and back into the main bay of sickbay as he grabbed a dermal regenerator along with several hypos that he would most likely need. He sent a glance back to the room Jimmy was in before jogging over to his office intent on figuring out what the hell was taking Chapel and Spock so long to get that PADD.

"Chapel! Spock! What the hell is taking so long!" He yelled as he strode into his office to find the two of the sifting through the various PADDs he had on his desk.

"We are trying to figure out which on of these has your patient files on it but all of them are access code protected and we don't know your code."

Leonard huffed and grabbed the one that was closest to him, knowing that it was the one with his patient files on it by the little 'pf' he had taped to the back corner of it specifically for situations like this. "This is the one I needed."

The minute and a half it took him to gather everything and get back to Jimmy was obviously to long because when he got back the kid was once again _covered_ in bruises and he could see, even without his tri-corder, that the kid had at least three broken bones.

"I'm back Jimmy, I'm gonna give you a hypo to help with the pain alright? You're gonna feel a bit of a prick but you'll barely feel it." _'Like he would ever feel the prick of hypo over the pain of all those injuries'_ He thought to himself with a grimace.

Jimmy answered him with a barely audible whimper that was barely any louder than the hiss of the hypospray.

Leonard watched as Jimmy's body relaxed marginally as the medicine made its way through his bloodstream. "There we go." He said soothingly while gently rubbing the spot he had pressed the hypo into. "That feels better doesn't it."

"Chapel I need you to pull up the file I have for Jimmy and scroll back through it to right before we gave him the medicine." He stated giving her a look that he hoped conveyed the fact that he actually wanted her to look in Jim's medical records for around the age Jimmy was currently.

She nodded and quickly set to work scrolling back through the massive catalog that was Jim Kirk's medical records.

"Leonard my tummy still hurts." Jimmy whimpered sluggishly.

Leonard bit his lip and ran a hand down the part of Jimmy's side that didn't look red and inflamed, that sluggishness in Jimmy's voice had only ever come up the few times Frank's abuse showed itself in the form of head trauma and a quick glance at his tri-corder confirmed that theory.

He plastered what he hoped was a reassuring smile on his face even though he knew Jimmy couldn't actually see it. "I know darlin', can you tell me if your head hurts too or is it just your tummy?" He asked quietly as he tried to keep Jimmy talking to him while he turned on the dermal regenerator and started running it just above the swollen skin of Jimmy's lower abdomen. It was a slow going but the skin was mending itself as the color of the burst capillaries started fading from an angry red to a greenish color.

Jimmy whined and squirmed against the bio-bed as his nerves and blood cells knitted themselves back together under his skin. "Is your tummy feeling any better, Jimmy?"

He nodded at him but continued squirming, taking another look at the monitors he sighed in relief as they registered the fact that the internal bleeding had stopped and the bruises were almost completely faded.

Then he moved to turn Jimmy gently onto his side, he had Chapel give the PADD to Spock so that she could help keep Jimmy on his side without hurting him and Spock could continue scrolling through the mass of information to get to what he needed. Leonard moved the regenerator up and down trying to heal the bruising on his back as fast as he could without causing anymore pain.

Once that was done he and Chapel laid Jimmy back onto his back and Leonard sent Chapel back out to the main room of medbay so that she could get him a osteogenic stimulator to start working on fixing the broken bones he could see. "Spock. How are you doing with those records?"

"I should be able to obtain the information you require in precisely 4.5 minutes, Doctor."

"Good. Jimmy are you feeling any better?"

"A–A bit. My head h–hurts a little." Jimmy whispered.

Leonard brushed his hair back out of the way of his eyes. "I'll see what I can do about that once I fix up your bones, okay?"

The mending of his bones was more time consuming, more painful and it wasn't able to completely mend the bones back to their original form. He would need another round of the osteogenic stimulator later but they wouldn't be causing him nearly as much pain, though he probably couldn't feel it with the amount of pain killers Bones has flooded his system with.

He made sure to keep Jimmy talking through out the whole process to make sure the head wound, which was now quite obviously a pretty bad concussion, wasn't getting any worse or impairing his brain functions. Jimmy was sluggish and lethargic, quite reminiscent of how he had been when he had that bad case of Levodian Flu.

"Doctor. I have obtained the necessary files that you requested. If you would accompany me to the general area of medbay I wish to proceed with sharing my findings."

"Of course. Jimmy I'm gonna step outside with Mr. Spock, Nurse Chapel is going to stay here with you and give you another round of pain medication, if you need me just have Nurse Chapel call me or if you just call out to me I'll come right back in."

Leonard pressed a quick kiss to Jimmy's forehead before walking out the door after Spock.

"What did you find Spock?"

Spock handed the PADD over to him. "Shortly after turning six Jimmy was admitted to the local Riverside Emergency Room by his step-father. Allegedly, according to his step father, Jimmy had fallen down the stairs and lost consciousness when he regained consciousness his eyes had a cloudy film over them and the Emergency Room doctors declared that the fall had caused the tissue in his brain to swell and put pressure on his optic nerves rendering him temporarily blind. The attending doctor, a Dr. Andreas, wrote in his report that all the other injuries he had treated were sustained during the fall and had been healed though he did have Jimmy stay overnight for _observation_." Spock said hesitantly. "There is no record of this observation that he underwent though and the next morning the records state that he was released back into Frank's care."

"The next available record is for almost a week later and that record states the Dr. Andreas saw Jimmy again and confirmed the fact that both the swelling and the blindness had gone away naturally with time."

Leonard scrubbed a hand over his chin and growled in frustration. "What the hell kind of doctor is this guy? Who sends a six year old home the next day after he is supposedly blinded by a fall? Even if he hadn't so obviously been abused there is no way any self respecting doctor is going to send a patient with swelling in the brain home without at the very least keeping them for a few days or giving them medication and clear instructions on the warning signs for brain damage."

"Obviously this doctor is _incompetent_ at best and possibly abusive in his own right." Spock said in agreement. "I will endeavor to look into this man once we have Jimmy back to normal. It would be illogical to allow him to keep practicing medicine and possibly harming other patients with his blatant disregard for proper medical procedure."

Leonard nodded at him distractedly and waved him off with a slight motion of his hand. "You do that after you make that next dose of the antidote for Jimmy. I don't want to age him up to his teenage years and find out that Frank somehow managed to up the ante of his abuse the older Jimmy got. Don't come back in here till you make however much antidote we need to get him back to normal."

Spock moved to walk out of medbay.

"We do have enough to get him back to his normal age right?" Leonard asked hesitantly as he turned back to Spock.

"Affirmative Doctor. As I only need half of the fruit to create one dose and Lieutenant Sulu brought back several of them with him I have sufficient means with which to produce the correct amount of antidote for him, in fact if my calculations are correct I should have enough left over to actively study the properties of it to figure out exactly how it works."

Leonard gave him a relieved smile and Spock returned the gesture with a relieved look in his eyes and a nod before he walked out of medbay, presumably to get started on another dose of antidote.

"Alright Jimmy, I have some good news. The blindness is temporary so in a few days you'll be back to normal. I've also got something that will make your head stop hurting, but it'll put ya to sleep for a little bit so that I can work on fixin the rest of you without making you feel every little bump and bruise I heal."

"Okay. Can I have Bones?" Jimmy asked dejectedly as he unintentionally kept his gaze locked on the ceiling.

Leonard picked up the stuffed puppy form where it had fallen in Leonard's attempt to get off the bio-bed when Jimmy had originally called out for him. "Here you go sugar. Now go ahead and get comfortable while I go get your medicine."

"Hey, Spock, you've got the new dose of the antidote right?"

"Yes Doctor McCoy, however we must check and make sure the other dosage of the antidote has fully left him before we give this to him."

"I already did that Spock, I had to so that I knew whether or not I could give him the painkillers."

"Well we must check again to make sure. Since you have also given him other medications we must see how much is still in affect to make sure it won't interfere with the antidote. I do not wish for a repeat of our attempt to give him the antidote where we accidentally mixed it with a sedative."

Leonard sighed and rolled his eyes, though it was honestly mostly for show as he did very much agree with Spock's worry of hurting Jimmy again. "I only used the painkillers that were on the list you gave me of medications that would not mix badly with the antidote. We'll go ahead and check him over again but you have to be quiet cause he is still sleeping and exhausted after I spent so much time healing him."

"Of course, doctor." They walked into the room and Leonard picked up his tri-corder, careful not to disturb the sleeping child as he ran the tri-corder over his body.

Leonard turned the tri-corder around once it beeped to show Spock the results. "That good enough for you hobgoblin?"

"That is sufficient doctor. Do you need my assistance in administering the antidote since he is sleeping?"

"No, I've done it myself before I can do it again." Leonard said as he gently lifted Jimmy into a sitting position and moving him to rest back against his chest then he opened Jimmy's mouth and slowly let the antidote trickle down into his mouth.

He massaged his throat lightly to make sure he swallowed it and then let go of his chin and let him just rest back against his chest. Both Spock and Leonard waited with baited breath for it to work its way into his system.

But nothing happened.

Just like the time Leonard had given him the antidote by himself, nothing was happening. Leonard looked over at Spock in shock who also had a blatant look of shock on his face, it was clear neither of them had any idea what was happening.

"Spock hand me my tri-corder _now_."

With his tri-corder in hand he ran it over Jimmy and groaned as the results showed the antidote was in his system but it was not having any effect on his body. "This doesn't make sense! It was working before. Hell he's a whole year older. What the Hell changed?"

"I – I am not sure. I made the antidote in the same manner as the last batch and we have made sure that he had no medications in his system that would adversely effect the antidote. Logically the antidote should be working to make his body return to its natural form. I do not understand." Spock murmured to himself softly as he turned away from the bio-bed.

"Hey! Spock you need to focus." Leonard snapped his fingers in front of Spock's face to get his attention. "There must be _something_ that is different. We've now ruled out medication because the last time it didn't work it was because the medication interfered with the antidote and he had a completely different reaction. We've ruled out the fact that he can't be reaged because he initially regressed to far when he aged up a year with the last dose. We've ruled out that the first batch of antidote went bad because one batch worked and two batches didn't."

"You had to of done something different for the results to be different because everything with Jimmy was kept the same. Now the only way to know what you did different is for you to hightail it back to your lab, take the residual liquid from this antidote and compare it to the stuff you had left over from the second and first batches. I'll go down to security and get the security tapes for all of the time the antidotes were being made as well as when they were being held, waiting to be used. Maybe we were right when we said someone tampered with them." Leonard said fiercely.

He placed Jimmy back down on the bed laying flat and set the monitors to send a constant update to his PADD and communicator every two minutes. "We are going to get to the bottom of this once and for all. I'm going to lock this room down with my CMO override code and we need to make sure that no one and I mean _no one_ besides the two of us and the other members of the senior bridge crew come in or out of this room."

"Of course, doctor. That is a logical course of action."


	12. A Thrilling Conclusion

Once again it was a blessedly fast trip to Security for Leonard, Ensign Jacobs was able to get him the data files for the Science labs security camera during the times Spock was making the antidote within minutes of him arriving. He debated for a second on whether or not he should just pull the files up on his PADD right there in Security before deciding that he had spent enough time away from medbay already.

Especially since his CMO override meant that if something else went wrong in Jimmy's room while he wasn't there no one would be able to get inside to help him.

With that thought in mind he gave Ensign Jacobs a rough pat on the shoulder and a hurriedly shouted thanks as he bolted out the door and back down to sickbay.

Spock had set himself a brisk pace as he walked towards his Science labs, despite his Vulcan training telling him that worry and anxiety were not useful and would only serve to make him make another mistake, he couldn't help but feel those two emotions bubbling up in his throat.

The thought that he had made some infinitesimal mistake in his calculations or in his handling of the antidote was weighing heavily on his mind. He may not show it in the same way but he truly was just as loyal to Jim as the rest of the senior bridge crew and even the possibility that he had a hand in causing the younger version of Jim any extra pain was making him ask himself if it wouldn't be better to have a secondary scientist come in and check over the antidotes that way it would be seen by a 'fresh pair of eyes' as Doctor McCoy would say.

But as soon as the thought had come to him he immediately dismissed it, there was a reason they had decided not to tell the majority of the Enterprise's crew about the 'illness' that had befallen the Captain, it would not do to have that information get out so close to them finding out how to turn Jim back.

Spock mentally sighed as he arrived at the science labs where he had been conducting the research on the purity fruit.

"Commander! I did not expect to see you again so soon. How are you today?" A lieutenant asked him as he stood up from the station he was working at.

"I am adequate Lieutenant. I simply have a need to use lab six as I have been."

"Oh. Okay, well no one's in there right now." The lieutenant said with a somewhat nervous smile on his face.

In his haste to examine the residual liquids left over from the antidotes the strange phrasing of the lieutenant's words did not hit him till he was already in the lab halfway to his station.

Once it did however he turned and walked back out to the main science lab where the lieutenant had gone back to working at his own station. "Lieutenant Anders?"

"Yes Commander Spock? I thought you were going to work on your project?"

"The phrasing of your earlier statement seemed _off_ to me. May I inquire as to what you meant when you said 'no one's in there right now'. Are you stating that someone has been in lab six since I vacated the space earlier this shift?"

Anders once again had a nervous look on his face, which somewhat confirmed Spock's earlier suspicions. "W – Well not since you've been in there last, no one has gone in."

Spock's eyebrows rose towards his hairline, "Your nervous disposition suggests otherwise Lieutenant."

"I swear, Commander. No one has been in there since you left last time."

"Just know lieutenant Anders, that if I find out you have been allowing someone who does not have proper clearance into lab six while I am not here to supervise, I will be forced to apprehend both you and your accomplice and put you both in the brig while I decide on the need for official charges." Spock stated, watching as Lieutenant Anders swallowed slowly and avoided his gaze. When the Lieutenant did not offer anymore information he turned on his heel and swiftly strode back into lab six.

Sitting down at his station he quickly set up the instruments he needed to closely examine the three antidotes he had. He took the residual liquid from the vials of the first antidote, the one he had given to Leonard as well as the one Leonard had given to Jimmy. After placing both slides under his microscope he confirmed that both sets of liquid were consistent with the samples he had originally documented in his charts as well as being consistent with being made in the same batch.

He also confirmed the fact that the liquids from the second and third antidotes that had been given to Jimmy were consistent with the samples he had taken and put in his charts. But those confirmations were where the consistencies stopped.

Spock felt his face scrunch up in confusion as he looked between the microscopes. Taking one last look at the samples he had of all three antidotes he moved to find the purity fruits he had left over from making the antidotes. There were four and a half Delvian purity fruits left in the stasis box that Spock had put them in when Sulu had originally brought them back onto the ship.

He quickly took a small sample from all five different pieces and put them on different slides before putting the slides under five different microscopes.

One look in each microscope cemented the hypothesis he had thought of when he had been looking at each of the different antidotes. He placed the purity fruits back in the stasis box and quickly left the lab, making sure his first officer override was in place on the doors to lab six so that no one could enter without him there.

He needed to get to medbay and tell Doctor McCoy of his findings.

Leonard was sitting in a chair next to Jimmy's bed, Jimmy still hadn't woken up from his last batch of sedatives and truthfully Leonard was making sure that he wouldn't wake up until after Spock and him had figured this clusterfuck of a situation out. Jimmy was already scared by the fact that he was blind and if Leonard could keep him knocked out until Spock finally found out how to make an antidote that could actually turn him back to his normal age, well that was what Leonard was going to do.

No need to let the kid be scared anymore than absolutely necessary. The only thing Leonard didn't understand was why the hell it was taking so long for him to be able to view these damn security tapes. Ensign Jacobs had said that it would take longer than normal due to the size of the data files that he was asking for but he didn't expect it to take half a fucking hour to just load up one of the damn files.

"You should be glad you aren't awake for this kid, you'd be bored outta your damn mind." Leonard growled in frustration. "I should have just had Ensign Jacobs play these on the screens in Securit – Finally!" He whooped as the videos finally loaded onto the screen.

' _Alright lets check the video for the time where the antidote actually worked first.'_ He thought to himself as he clicked on the video file for the times where Spock was making the second antidote.

The video played and he watched about five minutes of dead air time before Spock finally entered the frame and sat down at his station. It was easy to see what he was doing as he walked over and picked up one of the purity fruits and set about slicing it in half before gathering several other ingredients. Using a bunch of equipment Leonard probably couldn't even begin to name, he took another hour and a half to synthesize the antidote. Once Spock was done, Leonard watched him take a small sample out of the vial with an eye dropper and place it in a sealed petridish and then log the sample into the file, after that he took the vial of antidote and left. Presumably to take it down to medbay and give it to Jimmy, Leonard continued to watch a couple of minutes of more dead air time until he was sure no one went in and tampered with anything.

Frowning, he chose the video file for the first batch of antidote, the one that had been given to both him and Jimmy, to look at next. This time however he only watched two or three minutes or dead air time before Spock came into the view of the camera. Much like the first video he watched, Spock went about creating the antidote only to leave halfway through.

With a sharp in take of breath he quickly switched to the last set of video files, the ones that were of the third antidote being made, and started watching them.

A stormy look passed over his face as he watched through the dead air time to get to just three or four minutes before Spock got there to make the antidote. He exited out of the video files with more force than strictly necessary and bolted up out of his chair, gripping the PADD in one hand he spared a quick glance to Jimmy's vital signs to make sure he was okay before running out of the room, barely taking the time to put in his CMO override on the door to Jimmy's room.

He needed to get to the science labs. Spock needed to see this.

Spock had once again set himself a brisk pace as he traveled from the science labs down to medbay, his mind running through all of the ways he could tell Doctor McCoy of the mistake he had made that caused the antidotes to not work.

Though with the brisk pace he had set for himself he very narrowly avoided have a full on collision with Doctor McCoy as he came running around the corner with an angry look on his face and a PADD clenched in his white knuckled grasp.

"Doctor, I have in fact found the reason for the antidotes not working."

"Spock! I know why the antidotes haven't been working!" They both said at the same time, though Leonard had practically yelled his words out for the whole universe to hear.

Spock raised an eyebrow and sent a pointed glance down at the PADD in Leonard's hand. "Doctor McCoy, Are you attempting to tell me that there are two different reasons for the antidotes lapse in effectiveness?"

"Wait, you found a reason too? What do you think is causing it?" Leonard asked while taking a step closer to the Vulcan first officer.

Spock took a quick look around at the few crew members who had stopped when they nearly collided with each other and had began to whisper quietly among themselves when Leonard had yelled out about possibly finding the reason for the antidote not working. "Perhaps this would be a conversation better held in the privacy of your office in medbay?"

Leonard caught on to what he was looking at with a startled jolt and quickly hid the PADDs screen from view before turning back the way he had came. "Yeah that's probably a good idea, Commander."

They walked side by side through the corridor towards sickbay, neither willing to break the silence until they were sure they were able to talk about the things they had each unveiled.

As soon as the door closed behind them once they were in Leonard's office however, Leonard started talking immediately. "So what the hell did you find that you think is what's causing this?" He asked as he sat back in his chair and threw his PADD onto his desk.

"After taking a closer look at the samples from the antidotes and comparing them both to each other and to the samples I took and cataloged before giving them to you and Jimmy, I have found that the discrepancy is not in fact in the way I made the antidotes but the actual purity fruits themselves."

"What do you mean the problem is with the purity fruit? I thought Sulu grabbed them from the same basket that the Delvian's gave them to us in?"

Spock shifted slightly in his seat. "You are correct doctor. Lieutenant Sulu did in fact grab them from the same baskets that the Delvian's brought them in. However, he grabbed several fruits from both the basket that was in your room as well as the one that had been in the room Jim was kept in."

"I still don't understand why that makes any difference."

"The fruit that was taken from Jim's room is _nearly_ identical to the one taken from your room however upon further investigation I have revealed that there is a slightly different mutation on one of the chromosomes found in the fruit given to Jim as compared to the fruit given to you."

Leonard leaned forward towards him with a confused look on his face. "How do you know which one was given to me and which was given to Jim if we originally thought that they were the same fruit?"

"I based my theory of which fruit was given to who on the fact that the fruit with the mutation on one of the chromosomes was the fruit that was used in the working antidote. Where as the fruit without the mutation was used in the antidote that worked for you. Using that theory it would only make sense that I accidentally used the non mutated fruit for the first and third antidotes and that was in fact the reason behind them not working. As I had not previously noticed the difference in the chromosomes I did not think to compare the three antidotes to each other under the microscope because I had prepared them the same way. That misconception and error was all through my faults and as such I take the blame for the fact that Jim was caused undue pain by my mistake."

"It wasn't all your mistake Spock." Leonard sighed and carded a hand through his hair as he shoved the PADD across his desk to Spock. "Those are the surveillance video from the security cameras in science lab six."

Spock gave him a sharp look before grabbing the PADD and starting the videos, after he had watched all three videos from start to finish he sent another pointed glance towards Leonard and Leonard could see the very real human emotion of anger swirling around in those dark eyes. "You are sure these videos have not been tampered with?"

"Ensign Jacobs sent the files straight from the Security offices database to my PADD while I was standing there with her."

"Then this means –"

"That one of the Delvian delegates or one of their aides is on this ship and that delegate or aide switched the mutated fruit with the non mutated fruit the first and third times you made the antidote. I'm assuming that whoever it was probably knew that you were trying to create the antidote to change Jimmy back and also knew that if you used the wrong fruit while making it, that the antidote would prove itself ineffective." Leonard said. "But the thing I don't understand is why they didn't switch it the second time? If all three antidotes had failed we would have assumed that he couldn't be turned back. Why only switch it two times and make us take a closer look because one time it didn't fail?"

"Doctor, I believe they did intend to switch the fruit all three times. Whoever it was made sure to not only remove the correct fruit that I had previously used for the second antidote but to also place a non mutated fruit in its place that was cut and worked on in the exact same fashion of the correct fruit, thus leading me to believe that I was using a piece of the same fruit I had previously worked on."

"But that still doesn't explain why they didn't switch it for the second antidote." Leonard asked exasperatedly.

"They did not have the time or the assistance."

Leonard furrowed his brows in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"The first time I made the antidote for you to use on yourself and for you to use on Jimmy, I was called away halfway through making it due to some happenings on the bridge. The videos show that the Delvian went in and switched the fruit, which according to the video was the one that Jim had consumed, with the one _you_ had eaten in fact since I already was a quarter of the way threw synthesizing it as the video shows he went on to copy my process and synthesize it with the fruit that you had. The video also shows a communicator sitting on the far side of the lab table which receives a message approximately four minutes before I return to the science lab. The delegate then uses those four minutes to dispose of the original antidote and replace everything with his."

"The second time I made the antidote, instead of working off of the fruit the delegate had placed there for me to believe I had originally used, I chose a completely different fruit because I believed that it was possible the fruit I had used wouldn't work the second time. There was only 5.45 minutes between the two of us realizing that the first antidote didn't work and my arrival at science lab six to start on the second antidote. That was most likely not enough time for the Delvian to get from where ever he had been hiding to the science lab as well as for him to switch the fruits again." Spock stated.

"He probably also thought you would just continue to use the fruit he had laid out for you instead of choosing a whole new fruit to start with. But that means it was solely by luck that you chose the fruit that Jimmy had eaten the second time." Leonard said helpfully as he took the PADD back from Spock.

"You are most likely right doctor. And on the third time I attempted to make the antidote, the videos clearly show the delegate entering the room and once again switching the correct fruit out with the non mutated fruit leaving the third antidote useless as the first one was."

Leonard scrubbed his hands up and down his face a few times in frustration before sighing and looking back up at Spock. "But I still don't understand how he knew that the second antidote had actually worked or how he even managed to get into science bay six with out anyone noticing. Hell, how did he know exactly when to get there and when to leave so that he could switch everything around without you knowing?"

Spock folded his hands in his lap beneath the edge of Leonard's desk so that the doctor wouldn't see them clenching in anger. "As for how he got in and out of science lab six, I believe he had help from a lieutenant in the science department, though I am not exactly sure why the lieutenant would stand to help him. But I am still unclear about how he managed to get the information on the fact that the second antidote worked where the others did not."

Leonard stood up form his desk abruptly. "Well. I'm going to go check on Jimmy and make sure he's still asleep. Then we'll go talk to your Lieutenant and see what he has to say for himself and this Delvian delegate."

"Lieutenant Anders."

The man in question jumped at the sound of Spock's voice right behind him, he nearly fell to the floor trying to get out of his chair to turn and face him. "C–Commander Sp–Spock. Um, I wasn't–wasn't expecting you back so soon." He said saluting Spock shakily. "I – Oh, hello Doctor McCoy! What brings you to the science labs?"

"I'm helping Spock here investigate some strange things that have been happening in science bay."

"O–Oh? What kind of s–strange things?" Anders asked softly.

"I'm pretty damn sure you know what we're talkin' 'bout kid. Don't be playin' dumb with me." Leonard said angrily as he took a menacing step towards the lieutenant.

As Anders jolted back a step at the animosity in Leonard's voice, Spock spoke up. "We have video evidence of someone allowing a Delvian into science lab six during times that I had announced no one should be in that particular lab. As the Delvian did not have any kind of clearance to even be on the Enterprise let alone in one of our science labs it is a severe breach or both protocol and security for someone to have let him in and since he did not have clearance he did not have his own codes with which to open the door to the science lab."

"Now you can either fess up to helpin' him in here or we can throw you in the brig and let Security interrogate you till the damn cows come home. If you cooperate with us and tell us why you helped this Delvian and where the hell he is, against my better judgment me an' the commander here might not court marshal ya' and get ya' sent to one of the bad prison planets." Leonard hissed as he got in Lieutenant Anders' face.

Anders looked like he was about to either have a panic attack or swallow his own tongue whole. He was pale and shaking as he looked into Leonard's eyes, which held absolutely nothing except for the barely contained rage that was simmering in his hazel eyes.

"He–He said that M–Mr. Spock was making a serum that would hurt Captain Kirk and that he and the o–others from the Delvian delegation had tri–tried to tell Mr. Spock that but he wouldn't listen! He s–seemed credible and genuinely concerned for Captain Kirk an–and–and I know that sometimes Mr. Spock doesn't take other peoples sta–statements into mind when it comes to his experiments." Anders said hysterically.

"You should have alerted security to the fact that there was a intruder aboard the Enterprise and then made sure I was given whatever information he had given you. Instead _you_ have hurt Captain Kirk in your endeavors and have possibly made his condition irreparable." Spock stated venomously as Leonard called Security to come take Lieutenant Anders to the brig. "Now, you will tell us where the Delvian delegate is hiding while we wait for security to come get you then you will willing head down to the brig and await my decision on what charges should be brought against you."

"I–I was just trying to _help._ " He whimpered.

"Yeah, well ya didn't, now where is the bastard you did help?" Leonard growled.

Anders breathed shakily and ran his hands over his face. "He said that he couldn't be seen so he needed some place close to the science labs and my quarters are just down the hall so I let him stay with me."

Spock broke away from them to talk to the security officers who had just arrived, explaining to them with a little details as possible that the Lieutenant had broken protocol and needed to be thrown in the brig to await his judgment.

"You sure this is the right room, Spock?"

"Yes Doctor. According to the rooming database this is the room that Lieutenant Anders occupied for his duration as a science officer aboard the Enterprise."

Spock typed his override code into the console and waited as the door slid open, the room was fairly dark and quiet but his enhanced hearing could hear the sound of a steadily breathing figure near the back of the room. "I believe our stowaway is sleeping in the back of the room, we should proceed with caution –"

"Lights 100%! Get up you purple skinned bastard!" Leonard shouted as he stormed into the room.

Spock had to physically stop himself from allowing his eyes to roll at the blatant disregard for his orders as the Delvian shot up out of the bed with a high pitched yelp, his lilac colored skin shimmering in the sudden light. The man tried to bolt around Leonard only to be stopped by a swift kick to the shin that brought him down to the floor, Leonard grabbed him by the back of his neck and threw him back onto the bed.

"Listen here you little jackass. You're gonna tell me how the hell you got on this ship and why you've decided that fucking up my best friends life is a great fucking hobby." Leonard spat as the Delvian delegate tried to get up again.

The Delvian shot a panicked glance at Spock who in turn only raised an eyebrow. "Your people were the ones who brought me onto this ship."

Spock's eyebrows started navigating their way towards his hairline as he took a step towards the bed. "What do you mean our people brought you onto this ship."

"While your delegates were on Delvia engaging in our purity ritual, your Captain offered a small group of Delvian's high court a tour of your ship, so that we would know what the Federation had to offer our planet in the event that we decided to join."

"That does not answer the question of how you are on this vessel now."

"When your captain did not complete the ritual The Chancellor told his court to leave one of their aides behind to make sure that you were unable to change your captain back through means other than the completion of the ritual. The official that I am an aide to told me that if we kept you from finding an alternative to completing the ritual for long enough that you would turn around and request Delvia's assistance in turning your captain back to normal." The aide admitted softly, unable to meet either man's eyes. "Once you returned to Delvia I was supposed to sneak off the ship and you would have taken your captain and his doctor down to the planet and the Chancellor would have told you that the only way to turn him back was to complete the ritual."

"You mean to tell me that you did all of this so I would have sex with _a five year old kid!"_ Leonard screamed.

The aide looked at Leonard with a severely scandalized expression. "I was simply told that your captain had decided not to do the ritual! I was not told it was because he was turned into a _child_." He stated breathlessly. "Please you must believe me! I would never have done this if I knew that the Chancellor had intended to use a child in the ritual!"

Spock strode up to the edge of the bed and looked down at the Delegate. "If you truly did not mean for any harm to come to Captain Kirk then you will not mind telling us the reason for the antidotes I made having only worked one time. You must also tell us how you were aware of the antidotes success or failures as your accomplice Lieutenant Anders did not have that information at his disposal."

The aide nodded, more to himself than to spoke before clearing his throat and turning back to them, though he flinched at the rage filled expression Leonard still had plastered on his face. "When I first started trying to sabotage your antidotes I realized that I needed someone who had access to the science labs, which as you know was your Lieutenant Anders, but I realized I also needed someone who would be able to tell me what was going on with the captain so that I would know when I would need access to the science labs. I convinced one of your nurses to tell me whenever Doctor McCoy and Yourself were discussing any kind or serum or 'medicine' for your captain or if something suddenly went wrong revolving around your captain in medbay."

"Which nurse!" Leonard asked angrily as he paced back and forth.

"I believe Lieutenant Anders called her Sarah?" The aide answered uncertainly.

"Sarah? Do you mean Nurse Zara Matteas?"

"Yes! That was her name."

The aide nodded at him and started to stand up only to be roughly pushed down again by Leonard. "Damn it. She only came aboard the ship four months ago when we made that stop at Star Base 17 to pick up supplies, she was supposed to replace one of my more experienced nurses that had to be transferred to another ship." Leonard told Spock irritably.

Spock nodded at him and turned back to the Delvian delegate. "Now you will tell us why some of the fruits are genetically different to the others and why you had to switch them to make the antidotes not work."

The aide once again glanced at Leonard with a scared expression on his face as he watched the man start pacing back and forth like a caged animal. "On Delvia there are two different types of purity fruits we give to the ritual pairs. One has a dominant gene in it while the other has a recessive gene in it, the reason there are two of them is so that there are never two dominant partners during the ritual."

Leonard stopped and gave him a questioning look. "What do you mean two dominant partners?"

"The fruits are made to make the consumer who has the recessive fruit more likely to be submissive as the ritual can not be completed if both partners are trying to be dominant. Before, there were to many fights between two male participants over who would be the submissive partner. The reason your antidote didn't work is because you were using the genes from the dominant fruit to try and reverse the effects of the recessive fruit. When you managed to use the recessive fruits sample to create the antidote it actually worked because the antidote was made to target the right type of fruit which lingers in the consumer until the ritual has been completed."

"You should be glad you didn't manage to make his condition irreparable, because if you had you would never make it to the brig do you hear me?" Leonard grunted as he turned as stormed out the door, Spock could hear him on his communicator telling Security to come pick up the Delvian Delegate as well as send someone to go pick up Nurse Zara Matteas.

He stood with the Delvian delegate until security got there and hauled him off to the brig. Once he was sure they were well on their way he pulled out his communicator and sent a message to Doctor McCoy to let him know that he would be going back to the lab to work on a final antidote to cure Jimmy now that they knew what exactly had went wrong.

"I'm glad this is finally about to be over, Spock." Leonard said with a sigh as he ran his hand threw Jimmy's hair, the boy was still fast asleep though this time it was a natural sleep and not a medicated one, but even so Leonard couldn't help but compare this scene to the other three times he had stood over Jimmy about to give him and antidote made from those dumb ass purity fruits.

"As am I doctor. I to have missed Jim and his..unique presence."

Leonard smiled at him and took the vial from his grasp, sitting on the edge of the bed and moving Jimmy to rest against back against him. " Don't let Jim hear you talkin' like that after he's himself again Hobgoblin or we'll never here the end of how he made a Vulcan admit to missing him."

"I believe I would be willing to deal with that if it meant that this ordeal was done and over with, Doctor."

"You and me both." Leonard chuckled.

Leonard uncorked the vial and gingerly pried Jimmy's lax mouth open, pouring the liquid down his throat slowly to make sure he didn't choke on it. He cradled the back of Jimmy's head in his hand once all the liquid had drained out of the vial and into Jimmy's throat.

Not even a minute later he could feel the skin and bone beneath his hand start shifting and stretching. He looked down and watched as Jimmy's body started changing, the transformation was much faster this time and he could clearly distinguish as his body went from the soft, small form of a toddler to the lanky awkward look of a growing teenager.

Jim was moaning and whimpering softly in his sleep as the pain that Leonard knew was from the transformation started to actually hit his system, though Leonard knew that Jim was probably feeling ten times the amount of pain he had as he had to only age a few years and Jim had to age all the way up through the most formative years of his life.

Finally, the transformation stopped and Jim's body was settled back into the familiar form of a 26 year old Jim Kirk. A low groan and movement against his neck made him lower Jim's head away from his body, revealing bright electric blue eyes staring back up at him in a confused daze. "Jim? You with me Darlin'?"

"Hmm I love it when you call me darlin'." Jim breathed sleepily as he smiled up at Leonard. "Are we back on the Enterprise, Bones? Did the ritual get completed while I slept?" He asked confusedly as he looked around and took in the sight of medbay.

"No Captain, there was some _complications_ with the ritual, The Federation has officially declined Delvia's application for joining the Federation." Spock stated.

That announcement made Jim sit up frantically, though Bones did try to keep him from sitting up to much by holding him forcefully against his chest. "What? What happened!"

"Listen Jim, uh, some things came up because of the ritual." Bones said slowly as he ran his hand down the side of Jim's face. "Things about your past. And your step-father."

Jim looked at him for a second before the blood ran out of his face leaving his face a pale shade of gray . "N–No." He said softly to himself as he looked away from Leonard. "You–You guys were never supposed to know about that." He breathed out slowly and put his head in his hands.

Spock looked at Jim with sadness and dread swirling around heavily in his side. "Captain. You know none of this is your fault. No one thinks you are to blame in what your step-father did to you and no one but myself, Doctor McCoy and the senior bridge crew know what happened to you." Spock said tenderly as he placed his hand on Jim's shoulder in what he hoped would be seen as a comforting gesture.

"I – I know it's not my fault Spock. But that doesn't – it doesn't make me feel any better to know that I didn't do anything wrong." Jim sighed. "Believe me I've told myself that it wasn't my fault for years but it doesn't make me feel better."

Bones hugged Jim tightly and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. "If it helps any I'm pretty sure all of the bridge crew, including Spock and I, are planning on finding everyone who hurt you and making them wish they were never born."

"Actually doctor I intend to make sure that those who hurt My Captain are never able to see the light of day again from whichever penal colony they get sent to for the rest of their miserable lives." Spock said slyly as he removed his hand from Jim's shoulder and instead laid it to rest on his lower leg.

Jim laughed softly at that admission. "As long as you guys let me help I think that might make me feel a bit better." He said as he dragged Bones down to kiss him fully on the lips. "But first I think I'm gonna need to sleep. I feel like I got hit by a train and set on fire."

"Let me go get 'Bones' and then you can sleep Darlin'."

Jim looked at him skeptically. "You're already here Bones, Spock did he hit his head during the ritual or something?"

"I didn't hit anything during that ritual, though honestly I wanted to deck that Chancellor a couple hundred times. _This_ is 'bones' you've been sleeping with him since we got back aboard the Enterprise." Leonard said with a smirk on his face as he waved the stuffed puppy clothed in a StarFleet medical uniform in Jim's face.

Jim's face went red at the sight of the stuffed animal. "Please tell me no one saw me sleeping with that." He asked with embarrassment written all over his face.

"I believe Lieutenant Uhura has taken multiple pictures over the course of the last few days." Spock answered with a raised eyebrow."

"I'm never gonna live this down!" Jim yelled with a hand covering his red face as Bones laughed.


End file.
